Alderbury Pre-school - early years education for the under-5s

February 2009

Futurebuilders invested £60,000 in Alderbury Pre-school to help facilitate a move to newly built, larger premises in the grounds of a local primary school.

It was quite difficult to fundraise, because unless you have the big pot of money no one is going to give you any money so that’s why we went down the Futurebuilders route.

Audio

Listen to Pam Clarke, Room Leader, talk about the changes between the old and the new building (1.27 minutes).

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About Alderbury Pre-school

Alderbury Pre-school provides teaching of the Early Years Foundation Stage for 50 children; ‘Caterpillars’ - aged two-three and ‘Butterflies’ – aged four-five. It also provides a breakfast club and after-school club for children from the primary school next door. Up to 29 children can access the services – spread across two play rooms and a playing field – at any given time.

The services are paid for with a combination of direct payments from Wiltshire County Council - which pays for children aged three and four to attend five half-day sessions a week – and contributions from parents.

The pre-school was started in the 1960s by a group of parents who would meet informally in the village hall. Administrator Ruth Owen explains: ‘It started in the village hall. The parents met and brought toys that the children could play with in the mornings. From that it progressed to something more structured – they’d keep toys in the village hall and parents would pay to drop their children off and staff would be paid.’

In the 1990s the primary school moved to where it currently is and the pre-school was given the school’s old building on the outskirts of the village.

How Futurebuilders helped

By 2005, the building that the pre-school had inherited from the primary school had become so run-down that there was a worry that it might have to close down. Room Leader for the Butterflies, Pam Clarke, remembers; ‘We had wonderful grounds. We had woodlands, lots of play areas, but unfortunately the mobile was very, very old and every winter we used to think that this was going to be the last winter. Basically, it was past its sell by date. We knew that desperately we needed to get a new building.’

However, local fundraising and applications to grant making bodies failed to raise anywhere near the required £60,000 for a new building. And as time went on, the situation in the old building was getting worse and worse. ‘We used to get a lot of damp, and we all felt that there will come a time when we wouldn’t be able to survive’, Pam says.

Ruth Owen talks about the difficult times: ‘It was quite difficult to fundraise, because unless you have the big pot of money no one is going to give you any money. We applied to Comic Relief, the National Lottery, loads of big organisations. Because we hadn’t got nearly what we wanted, they weren’t interested. So that’s why we went down the Futurebuilders route.

Futurebuilders provided a £60,000 Full Investment to Alderbury Pre-school; a £50,000 loan and a £10,000 capital grant to contribute to the purchase of a reconditioned portacabin. The new building increased capacity from 20 to 29 children at any given time, is light and airy and is located in the grounds of the primary school.

The new, light and airy play room

Being located in the grounds of the primary school has a very positive impact on the children, Pam Clarke says. ‘From the children’s point of view the transition, from here, where they feel secure, to big school, is so much easier.’

Achieving sustainability through Futurebuilders

Through the Futurebuilders investment, Alderbury Pre-school could move from a situation where its future was unclear to a sustainable organisation delivering services to 50 children in the village.

‘We just had visions of going up there one day and finding the roof caved in and having to send the children away. So Futurebuilders helped us so much’, says Ruth Owen.

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