27th January 2008

As you may know, Stonham Aspal Pre-School have been trying over the past few years to move to new premises within the grounds of Stonham Aspal Primary School. Our efforts to achieve this were backed both by fantastic fundraising activities by parents of children at the Pre-School, but also by a £300,000 grant from Suffolk County Council. We had planned not just to extend the opening hours of the Pre-School, but also to run the breakfast and after-school clubs for 5-11 year olds that the Primary School must organise as part of the government’s Extended Schools programme. It is with great sadness and disappointment therefore that the Pre-School Committee and Staff have to report that there will no longer be a move onto the school site and that the £300,000 County Council funding has been withdrawn.

Our original plans were to erect an environmentally-friendly building especially for the Pre-School and Extended Schools clubs at the far side of the school playing field. Despite the support of Suffolk County Council, however, this proposed building was refused planning permission by the County Council’s planning committee in the summer of 2007.

Since no other sites were available on the school grounds that wouldn’t encroach on the school football pitch, we have, over the last six months, been in discussion with the governors of Stonham Aspal Primary School about the possibility of moving into the primary school and refurbishing two existing classrooms for use by the Pre-School, with some of the Pre-School funding from Suffolk County Council being used to build two brand new classrooms for the Primary School. However, the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich were not prepared to sublet part of their building to the Pre-School. So all options for moving the Pre-School onto the school site have now been exhausted and, consequently, the County has decided to withdraw the £300,000 funding.

Stonham Aspal Pre-School will continue to use the Village Hall to provide 2½ to 5 year olds with what Ofsted has very recently described as an outstanding early years education, and we will look at any ways we can to make improvements to the services we can offer. Having permanent premises on the school site - some other pre-schools in Suffolk now have these - would have enabled us to offer the wrap-around child care that is much needed in the area. We are disappointed that we will no longer be able to do this. As yet, we are not aware of how the Primary School is going to meet its obligations under the Extended Schools regulations.

We feel that our spirited but failed attempts to build a new Pre-School represent a missed opportunity for the children of the area, their parents, and the community in general. Local surveys have shown that there is a pressing need for both breakfast and after-school clubs in Stonham Aspal and the surrounding villages to enable parents to more flexibly juggle their childcare, work and other commitments.

We will continue to strive for excellence in our care and education of the under-fives and are currently working as a Key Practitioner Setting for Inclusion and working towards completion of the Suffolk Quality Assurance Scheme (Quality Kite Mark). We are extremely thankful to Lynne and her marvellous team for their dedication and are mightily proud that their outstanding commitment to the under-fives was recognised by the Ofsted team that visited the Pre-School in the late Autumn of 2007. We will, in addition, continue to work closely with the Village Hall Committee and make improvements to the facilities whenever possible.

Rachel Turner
Chair, Stonham Aspal Pre-School