PARENTS have been left trying to find places for their children to go to school after a pre-school was closed without warning.

Around 25 children attended Little Ark pre-school in Coopersale and parents were informed by letter that the school would no longer be running from September.

Mother-of-two Louise Allaker, 30, from Thornwood said the news had come as a shock.

She added: “I have one child there and my youngest was due to start in September. Everywhere else is now shut for the holidays so I don't know how I'm going to find somewhere else for my kids to go.

"We have no idea why it was closed, it didn't say in the letter.”

Nicola Chaudhury, 35, from Coopersale Common, tried to find out what was happening before she received the letter.

She said: “We had heard a rumour it was going to close so I called Raymond Mckerron who is on the committee and asked what was going on. He told me they were having a private meeting.

"My three-year-old went there and had been there for a year and was really settled and loved the teachers. They were brilliant. But the committee who ran it didn't seem to think about the children at all when they did this. There wasn't even an apology in the letter.”

Sharon Bailey, 32, from Thornwood had bought a new uniform for her daughter who should have been starting the pre-school in September.

She said: “My son left this term but my daughter was due to start and they had let her go in for one morning a week to get her used to it for September. Now I've got no time to find somewhere else for her to go.

"Surely they must have known they were going to close before they took money from me for her uniform. The staff seem to have been treated really badly as well. We paid £10 for a two-hour session but no money was put back into the pre-school.”

Registered provider and treasurer of the pre-school, Raymond Mckerron, said the reason for the closure was because they could not find a new supervisor.

He added: “We reached a point and had quite a few discussions about what we could do and how we could get around things but we were in a position where we couldn't open in September.”

Ofsted had informed the pre-school it could not continue without a supervisor and the committee decided to close the school rather than continue looking for a replacement throughout the summer.

Asked why the committee could not inform parents about what was going on, Mr Mckerron said: “The mother who called me up contacted me on the day we had the meeting. I don't know what made her think she should be given information ahead of everyone else.”