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20
Apr
Nursery section of Harrogate primary school set to permanently close
A Harrogate primary school is set to permanently close its nursery due to falling demand for places.
Kettlesing Felliscliffe Community Primary School currently has no nursery-age children attending the school. This follows a temporary suspension of the nursery in 2023 after consultation from the school federation’s Interim Executive Board.
The number of children attending the nursery has been decreasing since 2020. In October of that year, there were 17 children at the nursery. This was reduced to nine by October 2022.
Parents and carers were invited to consult on the future of the facility earlier this year and the decision was made to permanently close it.
In a meeting today (April 17), Cllr Annabel Wilkinson, North Yorkshire Council’s executive member for education, learning and skills, supported the governing body’s proposal to remove the nursery.
The decision will see the school return to year groups of reception to Year 6. This is an age range of four years to 11 years, as opposed to pupils starting at three years old.
Cllr Wilkinson said:
This is not a sudden decision or something we take lightly. Demand for the nursery has steadily declined in recent years and currently there are no nursery-aged children enrolled.
I would like to thank everyone who took part in another consultation earlier this year about its future.
Based on the feedback received, it seems the sensible thing to do is to permanently change the age range at the school.
Despite the closure of this nursery, families still have access to good early years places within their community for their children which includes flexibility of accessing the provision during the school holidays.
Kettlesing executive headteacher, Ms Victoria Kirkman, said it will be business as usual for schoolchildren from reception to Year 6, though.
The school was recently praised by Ofsted, which labelled it a school with “limitless aspirations for all”.
Ms Kirkman said:
We are hugely proud to continue to deliver excellent education to children of statutory school age; sentiments echoed at our recent Ofsted inspection where we were highly praised by inspectors.
The primary school continues to operate to Ofsted’s ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ standards in its various categories of inspection.
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