Parents lash out after Andy Pandy closure announcement
Sophie Lewis
Parents are ‘disappointed’ at the recent announcement of the closure of Portchester’s Andy Pandy Pre-School – and they have said the board could have done more.
The pre-school was established in 1962 by Portchester Community Association, and became a fully fledged early learning setting in 1994 - but the board of trustees has made the decision to close it down at the end of July.
This decision has come as a shock to the parents and a number of them are outraged at the situation that has unravelled.
After the closure was announced to the parents, the board of trustees organised a meeting to discuss the situation where the parents brought ideas to the table in an attempt to keep the school open.
Becki Larvin, 32, is a parent who will be affected by the closure and she said: ‘It is a fantastic nursery. The staff are fantastic, they bond with the kids and you know that they are going to interact with them on a personal level so for me it is a case of why would you want to close.
‘The parents were just told that this is it, ‘we are closing there is no option to even look at’, there was no interest in finding an option.
‘It is a much-loved nursery in the area and there are so many nurseries closing at the moment and there is going to be barely anything left for the kids - what do they expect parents to do? Do they expect parents to travel further and further for childcare?’ Amber Sims, 40, has a daughter at Andy Pandy preschool and has been left feeling unhappy and angered at what has happened.
She said: ‘It came as quite a shock to all of our parents.
We didn’t know they were having issues at all until they said about closing.
‘We weren’t asked for help, we were left out and it is our kids that will suffer for it.
‘They haven’t tried to save it, they haven’t actually tried and a lot of them are new to the trustee board.’
The pre-school has said that if they were to continue operating into the next academic year it would affect the charity so severely that the whole association would collapse under the financial strain.
A number of parents have shared various ideas to keep the pre-school open including fundraisers, applying for grants and seeking help from local MPs but in the meeting with the board of trustees, they were told that they had already looked at every option and the decision is final.
Amber added: ‘The way they have worked things out they are making things look worse than what it actually is but they won’t even look into anything to help it.’
Kelly Rushton, another parent of a child at the preschool, said: ‘So basically I as well as all of the other parents are really disappointed.
‘They said it is down to financial issues but looking at it in more detail, there is something that could have been done to save the school. We weren’t advised before at all about the financial situation, theycouldhavesaidbeforethat we needed to do some fundraising. It was completely out of the blue, there could be so manythingsthatwecouldhave done to help the pre-school in the long run.
‘My daughter is three years old. She has been here about a year and I have had another child attend about three years ago, it is such a good school and it so disappointing that it is closing.
‘They could have done so much more.’