Steve Taylor, owner of Winchcombe Farm Day Nursery, which had been struggling financially, permanently closed the 80-place setting on 22 December 2017 after operating for 15 years.
Mr Taylor said he took the decision after being downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’ by Ofsted last month which he called a ‘commercial death sentence’.
The nursery’s no notice inspection was triggered by a complaint to Ofsted about safeguarding concerns over plans to convert two of the setting’s outdoor classrooms into holiday lets. The inspector found that the arrangements for safeguarding were effective and the nursery premises was safe and secure.
In a letter to parents, Mr Taylor said, ‘We have made no secret about the struggle we’ve had in the last 12 months to keep the nursery afloat, with hugely increased running costs, decreasing funding for the 15 and 30 hours and the effects of Government policy generally. We’ve been supporting the nursery financially for some time now and are no longer able to do this, having exhausted our savings.
‘Our recent Ofsted inspection in which we, unfairly in our opinion, were graded as ‘requires improvement’, was the catalyst for our decision.
‘Closing the nursery is not something that we would want to do, it is something we have to do. A ‘requires improvement’ rating will severely impact upon any new business.’
Winchcombe Farm Day Nursery’s inspection report says the setting is not yet good because ‘staff do not fully support children’s understanding of families and traditions beyond their own experiences’. Also, that ‘leadership and management are not wholly successful in providing the necessary support and coaching to ensure all staff have a good understanding of how to fully promote children’s learning'.
However, the report also acknowledged that the nursery, which employed 16 staff, had a number of strengths.
Mr Taylor claims that the Ofsted inspector was determined to find fault with the setting from the minute she arrived and says the nursery was criticised for being ‘very white and middle class’, and for allowing pre-school children to use a knife and fork to eat mashed potato at lunchtime, rather than a spoon.
He told Nursery World, ‘For the last 12 months, we have been experiencing a monthly loss of £5,000. Since the 30 hours came in, we have had virtually no pre-schoolers as they have moved to local authority-run settings where they can take up the extended hours at no extra cost. As a result, we were making nearly half the amount we did in 2013, which covered staff costs and meant the rest came out of my own pocket.'
Mr Taylor said he had no plans to appeal Ofsted’s judgement after trying to overturn the inspectorate’s decision in 2013 when the nursery was downgraded from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’ (now ‘requires improvement’), a judgement which he says led to a 90 per cent drop in online bookings and the nursery losing £70,000. The nursery was subsequently re-inspected in 2013 when it regained its ‘good’ rating.
When asked what his future plans are, the former nursery owner said he would continue with his plans to use the setting’s outdoor classroom as holiday lets, with the possibility of doing the same with the main nursery building.
A parent said, ‘The outrageousness of the Ofsted inspection angers and saddens us more than the struggle we now have to go through in finding a new nursery for our daughter.
‘It will be even harder to find a place that comes close to matching your nursery. We are overwhelmed by the mixture of emotions for all the children who are going to lose out, for you and your hard work, and not least, for all the members of staff, whom we considered extended family. We gave our trust to them to look after our children and they did an outstanding job.’
