Petition to Save Fairlawn Nursery

[Renata Hamvas]

Yas, St Francesca Cabrini does take non-catholic children, in both the nursery and the school.

Renata

[Penguin68]

Well the governing body of Fairlawn should all be sacked really if they knew this was coming! And after offering places for this summer!

Presumably, had the offer been sufficiently successful then closure could have been avoided. Had they not tried to fill places they would have been equally open to criticism. They were between a rock and a hard place on this.

In the end, like many businesses, they were not able to make an offer which sufficiently met their customers' needs. People are looking (I would guess, long time since I was looking for nursery provision) for a 5 full-ish day cover - which would mean that a close to full-time job could then be maintained. Although nursery education is good in and of itself for children in their socialisation and development, it also is often there to meet parental needs for day-time care.

As others have said, it always sad when any institution closes which you have used or relied on, but sometimes it cannot be avoided.

I must also add that I am not sure what a petition is meant to achieve. The governors of Fairlawn cannot afford to maintain a facility which is losing it money, and indeed would be acting improperly if they did. The council could not justify making additional support over and above that offered to other nurseries for this one.

The only actions which could save this 'business' is for more customers to want to buy from it. They don't. Signing a petition is nice but it gives no revenue to the nursery. You might be better to work to raise money to allow it to continue (too late, actually, probably for that). Signing stuff (other than a ballot paper) achieves, normally, very little. It is virtue signalling, but otherwise ineffective.

[yas]

Look when we took up this campaign we knew it may not appeal to everyone, in retrospect i should've posted this in family forum rather than general one. But unless you had a child there, you could not appriacate what a wonderful place Fairlawn Nursery is. The deficit is pitifully small. We just can't see why the local authority can't save it.

No, i won't send my child to a catholic nursery, I don't have a religion. No offence, if you do have a child there.

I don't appreciate being called a liar, when this nursery closing has everything to do with the cuts!

[Penguin68]

The deficit is pitifully small. We just can't see why the local authority can't save it.

And that says it all, really. Local authorities have to treat each class of call on our money fairly - they cannot (should not) differentially support a nursery (or anything else) because it's 'wonderful'. If the deficit is that small (though what is its trajectory?) why not raise money yourselves to meet it? Why should other tax payers lose money for their favoured cause (or even their favoured nursery) to meet your needs? If each signatory to your petition had instead given ?10 maybe you would have already raised enough for this year's cost over-run (sorry, don't know the actual figures). But then an e-signature costs nothing. If the cause isn't worth digging into your pockets to support (but instead trying to dig into other people's) maybe it isn't that important to people other than you?

[yas]

With all due respect Penguin68, this is for the local authorities to decide not for you!

[Penguin68]

With all due respect Penguin68, this is for the local authorities to decide not for you!

If the local authority is to divert cash from 'my' needs to 'yours', then I think I do have a say in it. Once the local authority determines to break any funding formula to favour a 'special case' then other electors have as much right to argue they should not do as to argue they should. That is why local authorities agree a funding formula to be universally applied. In the case of this nursery that formula does not derive sufficient cash for them to operate solvently. With more takers the formula would work in their favour, but they don't have those. It's economics 101. And the decision to close was theirs, not the authority's, as they (absolutely properly) determined the best use of their resources for their primary education delivery.

[yas]

As i said you don't make that decision, local authorities do! So i suggest you start listing how you want the public money to be spent and put it forward to local authorities! :)

[Loz]

yas Wrote:

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> I don't appreciate being called a liar, when this nursery closing has everything to do with the cuts!

So you are still actually claiming that all the schools in the area had their budget cut by 35% at the beginning of the year?

[dbboy]

d

[paulino]

This has the potential to be as entertaining as the Save Southward Woods thread...

[yas]

:) it bloody well does! Goodness me, i only wanted signatures! i didn't expect all that pettiness!

[yas]

incidentally backing save southwark woods 100%. :)

[Loz]

yas Wrote:

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> incidentally backing save southwark woods 100%. :)

You certainly seemed to have adopted their technique for uniting people's opinions.

[yas]

i should hope so as we live moments away from these woods. :) and if you can't see their point nor my point then that's your problem!

[JoeLeg]

yas Wrote:

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> i should hope so as we live moments away from

> these woods. :) and if you can't see their point

> nor my point then that's your problem!

Yup, you've got their PR skills down pat too. Good luck with that.

[yas]

Well as a mother of two kids who live by these woods, it is heartening to see that save southward woods campaign is a such a successful campaign! Maybe having great PR skills is a tad bit overrated then! :)

[Loz]

yas Wrote:

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> Well as a mother of two kids who live by these woods, it is heartening to see that save southward

> woods campaign is a such a successful campaign!

Has someone just redefined the word 'successful'?

[paulino]

Maybe Yas is just a rather sophisticated troll...

[yas]

well, they are the movers and shakers in the area. Thousands of twitter followers, they have launched their own honey brand called Camberwell Cemetery- noone even bats an eyelid to the name! :)

Anyhow, back to Save Fairlawn Nursery! :)

[JoeLeg]

You mean, back to the bit where people use facts and evidence to disagree with you and you get angry about it?

[yas]

Facts and evidence?

What facts and evidence according to whom?

[JoeLeg]

Whatever Yas...

Enjoy your arrogance, it obviously keeps you warm at night, but you plainly don't like what LondonMix or Penguin68 had to say so you ignore it and insult them (passive-aggressive sniping is still insulting).

Don't come up on a forum and then get annoyed if people point out where you're wrong.

I think I'll just sit back and watch you implode with rage now, far more entertaining.

[Loz]

yas Wrote:

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> Facts and evidence?

>

> What facts and evidence according to whom?

You still haven't answered if you are still claiming that all the schools in the area had their budget cut by 35% at the beginning of the year, yas.

[yas]

All the schools in the area had a budget cut! Hence why the governing body of Fairlawn School had to make a decision to close down the nursery only a few weeks after of having new kids starting at the nursery!

Pre schools have flexiable intakes, they could have January, April and September intakes. Or only a September intake! So, the numbers may or may not have been falling!

[Loz]

yas Wrote:

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> All the schools in the area had a budget cut! Hence why the governing body of Fairlawn School

> had to make a decision to close down the nursery only a few weeks after of having new kids starting

> at the nursery!

Nice attempt at a bait-and-switch, but do you still say that all the schools in the area had their budget cut by 35% at the beginning of the year?