A PRE-school which was closed without warning had failed to meet welfare requirements set out by Ofsted.

The Guardian recently reported that parents were left with nowhere to send their children come September after they received a letter from Little Ark pre-school in Coopersale informing them it had closed.

Registered provider and treasurer of the pre-school Raymond Mckerron said it was because they could not find a supervisor.

But Ofsted confirmed that the pre-school had failed to meet their standards at a recent inspection in June.

A spokesman from Ofsted said: “Ofsted gave the provider a number of actions to carry out to bring about improvement.

"We carried out a visit to check the actions were complete in July. Following this the provider decided to resign their registration.”

Mr Mckerron was still adamant this was not the reason he had decided to close the school and added: “We don't have to give a reason but it was because we couldn't find a supervisor.

"The Ofsted report made criticisms over a number of administrative and record keeping practice. The report wasn't great but it had an awful lot to do with administration, not the welfare of the children.”

Since the Guardian ran the article a number of people have come forward offering to take over the running of the pre-school.

But parent Louise Allaker, 30 from Thornwood said unless there was an entirely new committee, parents would not be interested.

She added: “Everyone is really upset with how it was handled and I think if members of the old committee were still there then no one would want to return.”

Wendy Wise, who runs a number of pre-schools in North Weald said she would be happy to take children from Little Ark who had not found anywhere else to go.

She added: “I was horrified to read the story in the Guardian. If we can help the parents in any way we have got spaces for September.”