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St Anne’s is one of Oxford’s largest colleges, with over 800 students. Our Fellows’ world leading research ranges across the arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics, and physical, life and medical sciences.
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St Anne’s College was the first to establish a children’s nursery in the 1960s, to enable its women academics to continue in their careers after having children at a time when there was no maternity leave, sex equality legislation or flexible working policies. Since then the nursery has played an important role in College life, supporting and nurturing generations of St Anne’s children.
It is therefore with great sadness that the Trustees have taken the difficult decision that the College can no longer continue to operate St Anne’s College nursery after the usual Christmas break. This follows a detailed external expert review of the nursery’s operations and future sustainability, consideration of the options available, and extensive discussion at the College’s most recent Governing Body meeting.
This has not been an easy decision and reflects a combination of longstanding and increasingly challenging factors and risks, including:
– Ever more demanding regulatory, safeguarding and governance requirements for early years providers
– Ongoing staff recruitment and retention difficulties, especially for qualified senior staff in an increasingly competitive market
– The operational and resourcing pressures of running a small 12-place nursery, with an increasingly subsidised financial model.
The childcare landscape has changed significantly over the time the nursery has operated. Today, University members have access to a much wider range of more flexible and affordable childcare provision, including the University of Oxford’s network of professionally managed nurseries. The availability of these larger, specialist providers, alongside reduced take up by St Anne’s families for places in the College nursery, formed part of the context considered by Trustees when reviewing the nursery’s long-term future.
St Anne’s remains fully committed to supporting College families, and Trustees are actively developing proposals for how best to provide support in the future in a way that is equitable, sustainable and benefits the widest possible range of academics, students and staff. Such additional measures would be in addition to the College’s maternity, paternity and parental leave policies, which already match those of the University,
The Principal of St Anne’s, Helen King, said:
“The nursery’s history and the contribution it has made to generations of children and families will always remain an important and proud part of St Anne’s story. This decision has been taken with great sadness and also with a rock fast determination to provide more equitable and flexible alternative support to current and future members of the College with childcare responsibilities.
“I also want to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to our wonderful nursery staff, past and present, for the exceptional care, dedication and commitment they have shown to the children and families they have supported, and to all who have carried the responsibilities of Nursery Fellow or been members of the Nursery Committee.”
The College is working closely with nursery colleagues and families to provide practical support during the transition, including helping parents explore alternative childcare arrangements with support from the University’s Childcare Services team. We would like to thank all the families who have been part of the nursery community over the years and for their support during this difficult period.