Shiplake Village Nursery has been providing preschool learning and care for the children of Shiplake for more than half a century. It was historically run as a charity by volunteers– but this became less feasible as the demands of running a high-quality setting increased. The links to our school have always been strong – with a significant number of our children in Reception coming from the Nursery.
In April 2018, we took on the management of the Nursery, with a view to widening provision and increasing the appeal of school, improving financial stability and meeting the needs of the local community. Those objectives have been met and the Nursery is flourishing with 24 children on roll, 9 of whom will join us in September and numbers looking positive for the new academic year.
We are delighted to announce that the Governors have now taken the decision to move the Nursery onto our main school site. We intend to make these changes in time for the start of the new school year in September. The move will have several benefits:
- Improving the experience for children
- Potential for expansion – we may look to extend opening hours for the nursery in line with school as well as potentially increase the number of places. This could make lives easier for parents with children in both settings.
- Improving efficiency – bringing nursery onto the main school site allows for more flexibility with staffing as well as reducing the running costs currently needed for two separate settings
We will use the current year 2 classroom to house the facility, also giving the nursery its own separate outdoor space at that end of our playground. We will repurpose our ICT suite as a classroom in the centre of school, which is a more effective use of this area. Changes in the way we deliver our ICT curriculum in individual classrooms that we have made during Covid have proven to be beneficial and this will make much better use of the available space.
We are working through the detailed plans of the move and will keep all parents informed as they progress