The Preschool started out originally in a prefabricated building at the back of Southam Infants School which is now the Graham Adams Centre. The infant and junior schools combined in 1996 when the infants moved up to the junior school building and the school became Southam Primary School. At this time the preschool was invited to rent a room within the new building and this is when Lynn Haddon, the current manager, took over.
We had 24 years within the primary school sharing the outdoor classroom with first one reception class and then later with two. Then in spring 2019 we were told that the school needed their room back due to numbers increasing significantly. However, Stowe Valley Multi Academy Trust, of which the primary school is a part, had applied for section 106 funding to build a new pre school in the grounds of Southam Primary. Section 106 is funding that developers have to put back into the community when they build new housing in the area.
The application was successful, planning permission was granted and work began in the winter of 2019. And then there was a pandemic which held things up for a while!
We had to move all our furniture and equipment out of our classroom and into the adjacent mini hall at the end of the summer term 2020. And at that point we weren’t sure whether the new building would be ready for us to start in September. It was a very stressful time; however, we were finally able to move in on September 1st 2020. There followed two very busy days sorting out all the furniture and equipment bearing in mind COVID restrictions. And a further two very busy days with individual visits for all the new starters and their parents prior to opening for all the children to return in the second week of September.
