Reducing numbers in preschool

[IAmRubyLennox]

Can any preschool committee members or administrators help me out with this?

One of the settings I work with (I'm a semi-freelance preschool administrator) is registered with Ofsted to have 20 children at a time.

To be honest, I'm amazed they were ever registered for 20 because it's a real squash and a squeeze. Anyway, due to some staff changes, the committee want to reduce the total number in each session to a maximum of 15.

Obviously this means that there will be fewer places on offer than in previous years.

Are they allowed to do this? Or would the local authority object on the grounds that they're reducing the number of preschool places available in the area?

If anyone has any experience of this I'd be really interested.

I'd also be interested to know the answer to this one as we were considering cutting numbers from 24 to 20, also because of issues with space. We always have a healthy waiting list, but hadn't even considered what LA would say.

I think that if the child/space ratios are inadequate according to the EYFS guidance then it would be fair enough to reduce numbers.

getting in touch with ofsted would be an idea in this situation because they must have based the registration upon how many metres squared space within the setting ie 2.3 metres squared per child for children aged 3-7. I can imagine the local authority would have a problem with this if it limits the funded spaces in the area

This isn't something I've done but I think we'd just start by notifying OFSTED and get on with it.

Our local Council don't seem to care about sustainability when they're allowing loads of EXTRA funded places to open in an area where the community pre-school is struggling to keep pupil numbers up so I can't see them kicking up a fuss about you reducing numbers. And if they do you can ask them to fund a nice shiny new facility for you to operate the additional places from.

Thanks for your replies. ROFL at 5ofus and her shiny new facilities, wouldn't that be lovely? I sense you're probably in a similar position to us, in terms of rubbing along in a building that isn't ideal for its purpose!

Did you find out an actual answer for this? I'm curious because I am pre-school administrator at ds' pre-school and Ofsted allow us to have 30 children per session but the staff/committee limit it to 26.

I had never even thought that there would be a problem with us self-limiting. I just thought as long as we remain under Ofsted's limit it wouldn't matter?

Plus aren't we supposed to keep at least one emergency space free everyday anyway, or is it 2? I know I read about emergency spaces somewhere but didn't take much notice as we are under our allowed limited by 4 each day anyway

I'm waiting for our local Sure Start office to come back to me with an answer on this one.

I'm probably worrying about nothing, but it's just that we'd be turning children away if we do this, and it's effectively limiting the number of preschool places available within the borough, which is what made me think that they might object.

Will let you know as soon as they respond!

(I try to keep one space free for an emergency admission. Although I do always wonder what happens if you fill your emergency space - which I have done, this year - and then someone else equally needy shows up )

We are in a church hall which is bright and semi-well maintained. Spaces for 26 are OK but because of layout and free flow we do need more than 1 to 8 to provide adequate coverage.

We would love some shiny new facilities

Eddas (and anyone else who's interested), our Childcare Development Manager at Sure Start has come back to me and said that there wouldn't be any penalty for reducing our numbers.

However, we would have to notify Sure Start because it affects the overall number of preschool places available in our borough, and this in turn feeds into their decisions about opening new preschools, grants to expand existing ones and so forth.

She did also say in her email to me "I think you need to show you have strong business and quality reasons for the change", but wasn't really clear as to who we would need to show these reasons to... possibly just have our case clear in order to explain it to anyone (e.g. disappointed prospective parents) who challenge why we've done it.