I wrote an article reporting what I considered vandalism in my nursery setting. It has since transpired that the damage was done whilst a group was renting out the church hall during the holidays. The group it seems was the Sefton Aiming High group.
This group does a lot of great work within the community with children with disabilities and their families. I do not hold the children attending this group responsible.
However, on 2nd August the Sefton group organiser decided to carry out an activity whereby the children did hand prints in paint across the fencing in the church garden. Instead of assessing whether this would harm the area in question, it went ahead. To do this activity the organiser should have at least had the decency to do it on the opposite side of the garden on the side of the hall itself. That way the paint would not have impacted so negatively on the nursery that also use the area.
The Aiming High team told me the paint will wash off in the rain, but it rained heavy that evening and the paint is still there. The organiser of this event should have washed it off everything before leaving the hall that day.
Equipment belonging to our nursery was also used that day, some of it was found underneath where the painting had taken place. This equipment was taken out of the locked hall and out of the nursery’s outside playhouse.
We have no problem with our items being used respectfully and put away where they were found. However, a lot of items were broken and pushed back into the playhouse along with a cap which does not belong to any of our children, where it would not have been noticed until we opened up in September.
The wooden playhouse window had in the past been slightly cracked by vandals. This had been safely sealed months ago with clear safety tape. However the window has now been completely put through and the Aiming High organiser had put duct tape right across it and left it. This now has to be professionally fixed as it is unsafe for the children in our setting.
Thankfully we are closed at the moment, otherwise I would have had to keep the children out of the garden completely, as it would have been unsafe for their use. I do not even know what type of paint they used and if it was safe for 2 years upwards.
I phoned my insurance and they advised that the onus rested with the group who rented the hall and damaged our items. My insurers also advised me to phone the police and record it with an incident number.
We recently had our Ofsted inspection and the inspector commented on what a lovely and well – resourced garden we had. We take great pride in our facility being a friendly and safe place for the children in our care. The staff have worked very hard and what we have achieved has taken us years to put in place, with very little funding. We are now in a position where damaged items need to be replaced and the fault was not ours.
With the state of under-funding in schools and nurseries at present I cannot afford to personally pay to put this right, and would not by law be allowed to use the Sefton funding to put it right either.
I hold the organiser of the group responsible and ask that Sefton put this right before we open in September.
Following this incident the safety and well-being of the children in my nursery has to be considered here first and foremost; as does the equipment my nursery has lost, which will cost me approximately £300 to replace with no funding to do it with.
I await the response from Sefton Council.
Cath Regan ©
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