From village hall to school

[slipenders]

I'm after some advice. At present our preschool is a pack away setting based in a village hall. We are restricted to certain opening hours due to the hall being booked up regularly. We have approached our local school asking if they would consider letting us move to their site- either to join them or stay as an independent setting. They have agreed to meet with us to discuss. Has anybody else done this recently and what are the pros and cons. I want to go in with some good pointers to try and win them round. They do have space after being given more land for the school to expand as it is going from lower school to primary. We would be prepared to cover the cost of a prefab.

Thanks

[Melba]

We did this 5 years ago which probably doesn't count as recently.

We stayed independent which allowed us to control our own spending and level of staffing. We work really well with the Reception teachers and can visit every week which is great. We can go for school dinners when they invite us which I think helps with settling in to school. We are considerably busier now than we ever were on a separate site.

However, we find the culture at school is not to share information unless we really press them. This has almost led to serious CP issues once or twice. The school caretaker treats us like a huge pain and is constantly rude but we have managed to cut him out of as much as possible of what we do.

[Rafa]

What would be the extra costs? We just pay a termly rent which includes water, electric etc.

[Melba]

We only pay a very small yearly rent and they work out out other costs as a percentage of the whole school bills according to the percentage of floor space we use ie 5% of the school.

It has made us much more successful. We also opened an after school club for the school which has done really well.

We would have gone out of business if we hadn't moved so it was essential for us.

[slipenders]

Thanks. When you did move did u go into a building already there or did u have to get your own? We are looking at some kind of portacabin or prefab to go within school grounds. Anyone else have experience of buying these?

Edited March 7, 2016 by slipenders

[lsp]

Hi. Have sent you pm.