As a mother of a three year old, my heart goes out to all of you who are affected by this really traumatic incident. Please understand that I in no way wish to undermine the efforts of those doing their best to get an apparently otherwise good nursery back up and running with the evident safety issue resolved. However I know that many parents could never send their children there again and must be desperately searching for alternatives, so I hope that the following will help somebody in their search. We can highly recommend two different childcare settings which my son has loved, both of which have immediate vacancies and very competitive rates. Amott Road preschool (http://amottroadpreschool.weebly.com) offers term-time childcare every weekday morning (9:15 - 12:15, flexible on days so part-time is possible) for children aged 2.5 to 4 years, it's a really friendly and supportive environment, serving the local community for over twenty years, but sadly under-publicised recently, despite its recent 'good' Ofsted rating. So it's ready to receive several children right now, and even more from September. I realise this might not help those of you who need childcare for the whole day, but that brings me on to my other recommendation. We're sad to be leaving our childminder tomorrow (as I'm now on maternity leave), and would love to recommend her as she has looked after our son for almost 3 years and has been brilliant. She works 8am - 5pm Mondays to Thursdays (again, flexible on days) and has even been dropping off and collecting our son from Amott Road since he turned 3, so that he could have consistency as well as a more structured setting to prepare him for school. Please pm me for more details as I haven't sought her permission to put her contact details up here! As I said, I just really hope that this will help someone caught in a desperate situation, and that whatever the outcome you will all be able to find the right solution for your families.
