Nursery vandals given space to play

Up until this summer, the Luton Street branch of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), near Edgware Road, was being broken into and vandalised on a regular basis. After the most recent break-in on 21 July, the children responsible, who were aged between ten and 14, were identified using footage from surveillance cameras.

Nursery manager Julie Weiss said, 'The children involved caused a lot of damage. They would climb over the railway wall and on to the buggy shed, jump on to the plastic shelter of our outdoor area and crack it. There were times when the nursery was being broken into three times a week.'

But after watching the CCTV images, Ms Weiss decided that, rather than press charges, she would invite these children and their families into the setting on one Saturday in August.

Ms Weiss said, 'What I realised while I was watching the CCTV footage was that the children were actually playing. These children were bored and had nowhere to play.

'I talked them through the cost of the damage and what it meant for the children who come here. They owned up straight away once they saw the damage they caused. Then they worked with their families and swept the whole garden, got rid of the dead plants and loaded up 30 black sacks of rubbish, heavy soil and dead plants.

'It was quite hard work and it was lovely to see the children helping and putting back into the community what they had taken away.'

Ms Weiss is now planning to open up the nursery once a month to local families. She said, 'I want to do the open days once a month, so that if these children want somewhere they can go to play or draw or just use the resources, then they can.'