Two of Croydon’s maintained nurseries are to be forced to find a primary school or academy partner by the end of this year, or face closure by the Conservative-controlled council.
Well-attended: Crosfield and Selhurst remain under threat, despite Croydon’s five nurseries managing to reduce their overall deficit
That’s the recommendation for Selhurst Nursery and Crosfield Nursery, following a review of the borough’s five maintained nurseries conducted earlier this year. It becomes the first major local issue to plop into the in-tray of the newly elected MP for Croydon West, Sarah Jones, and new Croydon East MP Natasha Irons (if she can find where Crosfield is).
Croydon’s cash-strapped council, under Tory Mayor Jason Perry, deemed the borough’s nurseries to be “not financially sustainable”, and is seeking to unload the responsibility for running Selhurst and Crosfield, in South Norwood, elsewhere.
After nearly six months of relative inaction at Croydon Town Hall, due to election period restrictions, the outcome of a review of the borough’s five maintained nurseries, which was conducted back in January, will finally go before a council cabinet meeting next week, where Perry’s poodles will duly vote-through the recommendations.
The schools – Purley Nursery, Selhurst Nursery, Tunstall Nursery, Crosfield Nursery and Thornton Heath Nursery – provide early years education and childcare to children aged two to four.
The model proposed involves each of the nursery schools linking with the governing body of a primary school, special school or academy. “This model is already working for three of the borough’s five maintained nursery schools, Purley, Tunstall and Thornton Heath,” the council says.
“The council is now proposing to work in partnership to develop this model with the other two nurseries, Selhurst and Crosfield, by January 2025.” So that’s less than five months for the nurseries to come up with a solution, after the council has been sitting on its review for four months…
“Working together through this new model will allow the nursery schools to operate more efficiently and cost effectively, without making significant changes to the service children and families receive,” the council claims.
The official papers going to the cabinet meeting state: “The new operating model recommended by officers is maintaining 5 x MNS [maintained nursery schools], via rapid implementation of viable financial arrangements by linking each MNS to a primary
school, special school, or academy trust.
Nursery closures: Tory Mayor Jason Perry still looking to close two nurseries, even though overall the nursery deficit has been reduced
“Three of the MNS – Thornton Heath, Tunstall, and Purley – are already linked successfully to a primary school and have a balanced budget. The remaining MNS – Crosfield and Selhurst – are in a federation, have a single governing body and not linked to a school.
“This report therefore also strongly recommends that Crosfield and Selhurst Nursery Schools establish a “soft” federation with a primary school, special school, or academy
trust through a Service Level Agreement (SLA), by January 2025.”
The council was looking at closure of some of its nursery schools despite the previous government’s plans to expand free early education provision, with 15 hours per week free childcare introduced for working parents of two-year-olds from April this year. From September 2025, all eligible working parents of children aged nine months and over will be entitled to 30 hours of free childcare per week until their child starts school.
The report to Perry’s pliant cabinet keeps the financial details secret, but it admits that the five nurseries’ accrued deficits, which had prompted the original closure proposals, are no longer an issue.
“Since the review, the overall budget deficit position has been reduced,” the council report states, “with [three] (of [five]) MNS reporting a provisional cumulative surplus for 2023-2024, compared to [one] school in 2022-2023.”
The three nurseries making a surplus are Purley, Tunstall and Thornton Heath.
The council wants to push ahead with off-loading its nursery school responsibilities: “MNS that are linked with a primary school can work collaboratively to maximise financial benefits and achieve economies of scale.
“The individual schools’ name, character, and ethos remain unchanged. The MNS would maintain their own delegated budget but are able to explore the advantages of sharing resources including facilities, and procurement.”
Parents associated with Selhurst and Crosfield describe the Tory council’s proposals as “backdoor academisation”.
They said, “If the problem was that the nurseries were ‘not financially sustainable’, and that is no longer the case, then why is there any need for this move to a ‘federation’, ‘soft’ or otherwise?”
The council, claiming that part-time Perry “has listened to residents”, says that “it has been working closely with the nurseries to find alternative options”.
With the summer term to end this coming week, there is little time left for Crosfield or Selhurst nurseries to discuss the issue with parents, or prospective parents looking for a nursery place in September.
Despite the official council report admitting that the nurseries’ overall budget deficit has been reduced, piss-poor Perry is quoted as saying, “Some of our maintained nursery schools are currently running at a loss which is not sustainable,” apparently ignoring the surpluses being accrued elsewhere.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” said Mayor Perry, having done nothing since March at the latest.
“We have listened to our parents, carers and staff and have found a model that is already working for three of our nursery schools. Adopting this with all five should make the service financially viable and keep these much loved local nurseries open,” Perry is supposed to have said.
Read more: Hundreds turn out to protest against plan to close nurseries
Read more: Mayor Perry is caught in a ‘bad lie’ over Addington golf talks
Read more: Perry’s Facebook page part of Tory ‘vile cesspit’ of racism
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Cutting jobs, destroying services, throwing public money down the drain. I don’t recall reading those words in Jason Perry’s manifesto when he was campaigning to become Mayor of Croydon. But that’s what he’s doing. He’s making things worse
Or the bit about hiking Council Tax by 21% either