NTCG Handsworth, George Street Church has a nursery attached, it is a predominantly black nursery, where our children are exiting with fantastic knowledge and are far ahead of their peers in schools. The experience and outcomes are extremely positive for our boys and girls who are placed at a great advantage.
The care for our children is impeccable, yet OFSTED are trying to close this great nursery provision due to an incident which they deemed to be safeguading which they thought to be so bad, that it took Ofsted six months before opting to close or suspend with intention to close.
The truth is, they know there is no risk, but want to close down our provision and are discriminating against us due to the nursery being predominently black, being annexed to a black majority church and is serving a predominantly black community.
The nursery does not discriminate against any race coming to the nursery, it just so happens that mainly black children attend this nursery. The inspectors who came out are white and have no understanding of our culture and in the main we can be deemed loud and have differing ways to our white counterparts. The truth is they do not understand us, so we have been labelled as having safeguarding and bad management of behaviour.
They closed the nursery down at the close of the nursery evening and parents were left without childcare, having to explain to employers about being out of work, explain to children they were not going back and destroying friendship groups. They have left parents and children distraught.
Despite the nursery management taking adequate action, have worked as instructed by Ofsted to address issues raised, Ofsted is still insistant to close our nursery that has been established for over 25 years and it is the case that our nursery is under threat.
If they believed that the decision to close the nursery was because of safeguarding and behavioural issues coming from May 2017, why have they left our children at risk for 6 months? The answer is because there is no risk, they just want to shut it down and they are using strategic management to force closure. Help us to stop them, we want our nursery opened. It is time to act!
