The trustees of Little Starz nursery have announced they will close their West Norwood & Kennington sites on Friday 27th September 2013 .
The council has withdrawn funding for the free 15 hours per week early learning time for three and four year olds following OFSTED childcare inspections at both the Kennington and the Norwood sites where the judgements were ’inadequate’. The council has an obligation to stop funding ‘inadequate’ childcare providers.
Parents have received a list of vacancies at nurseries in the area and the local Families Information Service (FIS) will speak to parents individually about alternative childcare – e-mail fis@lambeth.gov.uk or phone FIS on 0845 601 5317.
To read the Ofsted report for Little Starz childcare at West Norwood see http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/inspection-reports/find-inspection-report/provider/CARE/EY300252
Lambeth Council supports a wide range of high quality childcare providers in the borough and prioritises the safeguarding of the welfare of the children. The coalition government tried to water down childcare staffing standards set by the Labour government but was forced to make a U-turn after pressure from families and childcare providers.
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This isn’t the full story.
Little Starz was inspected, the staff were shown the report which had graded them ‘outstanding’. The report was then altered to ‘unsatisfactory’ and published, then funding removed. Part of the funding was then given to Kingswood for their children’s centre services.
Lambeth and/or Ofsted are ‘clustering’ services – fewer service providers at bigger centres. The report is a red herring – my children go to Little Starz and the staff and facilities are great (maybe not absolutely perfect but certainly far from unsatisfactory).
Lambeth is seemingly not at all interested in supporting “a wide range of high quality childcare providers in the borough”, and have not helped working parents any more than the current, equally awful, Conservative government
As parents ourselves we know how stressful and disruptive changing childcare arrangements is for working families with young children. And that all families want the best for their children.
To protect very young children there are quite rightly detailed regulations over their care. National funding pays for individual children who are 3 and 4 years old to receive their 15 hours free early learning . Government guidance is clear that the local authority must ‘withdraw funding as soon as is practicable for children who are already receiving their funded entitlement at a provider when it is rated “inadequate” by Ofsted’
Following withdrawal of this national funding, Little Starz made the decision to close its childcare provision. The Council is working closely with Little Starz to ensure that the building in Bentons Lane continues to be used for services for under fives and families in the future and is hopeful that new plans will be in place very soon.
OFSTED do give providers the chance to comment on their inspection reports before publication.
How very sad, it’s been an asset to local parents in West Norwood for a long time, will be sorry to see it go. It will def be missed.
To add insult to injury, the management of little starz took our October payment (it shut in September) and when we tried to get a refund the whole company had just vanished no administration or telephone number.
Is anyone else in this same situation?
If you need to contact Little Starz for return of fees or any other reason please email Stella CLarke at sclarke4@lambeth.gov.uk. Stella will pass on messages to the Chair of the Trustees of Little Starz.
Have closely watched the developments of late 2013 it was quite clear that Stella Clark and Lambeth had wrongly ‘manipulated’ over the prior 1 and 1/2 years the financial situation at the Centre. Regarding the OFSTED report. A visit in March of 2013 year verbally gave the Centre an “OUTSTANDING” rating. How does that happen that within 1 month this “OUTSTANDING’ simply disappears and this one visit a month later finds the Centre to be “Inadequate”. Local education politics at Lambeth Council have been notoriously self-serving and have conducted themselves improperly/verging on criminal, impacting on the lives of the local families who utilised the services at Little Starz, as well as the staff and management. That is the truth, and that is the way it was. Our reticent society did not have the where-with-all to confront authority and unify as a community collectively and in a constructive and positive manner. Dispicable and sad.