Changes to Roundabout Nursery

We're proposing to transfer Roundabout Nursery to Aurora Academies Trust. It will become part of City Academy Whitehawk, which is on the same site. Children at the nursery would then become pupils of the school. Parents will still have to apply for a reception place when their child turns four.

We’ve run the nursery since 2006, and really value the high quality of care for young children in Whitehawk and the hard work of the nursery staff.

However, the nursery costs a lot to run. In 2025/26, we planned to cover a shortfall of £365,000 from our general budget. Because of financial pressures, we may not be able to keep funding it at this level. Councillors agreed we need to make savings, and this was included in the 2026/27 budget proposals.

We're responsible for making sure there is enough childcare in the area, but we don’t have to provide it ourselves. It's important to us that families in Whitehawk and nearby areas still get high‑quality early years support that is easy to access.

The benefits of moving the nursery to Aurora include:

• helping protect and improve nursery provision in Whitehawk, sustaining it for the future
• helping children move more smoothly into school, without needing to change settings at age four
• helping make sure good‑quality nursery places are available for families over the long term
• the nursery becoming part of a school, in line with current government plans for nurseries to be based on school sites

Nursery staff will move to Aurora but keep the same pay, conditions and pension rights.