CHILDREN, parents and staff at a 68-year-old Botley nursery held a “bittersweet” farewell party on Thursday, as it prepares to merge with the neighbouring primary school.

Supporters of Elms Road Nursery School had opposed Oxfordshire County Council plans to merge with Botley Primary School, but on the final day of the school year yesterday, they said its spirit would continue to live on.

The two schools will become a single entity, the newly named Botley School, from September 1.

The nursery’s acting chair of governors, Caroline Johnson, said: “We all feel in a way this is a very bittersweet occasion.

“It means the end of an era for Elms Road Nursery School, but the beginning of a new phase.

“Since the 1940s, it has offered a fantastic education for generations of children and there are always very sad feelings when this sort of organisation comes to an end.

“But this is also a new beginning and there is enormous optimism about the future.”

Staff and governors have been drawing up plans for the merger over the past months, since the council’s cabinet pressed ahead with the plans despite the opposition of nursery workers and parents.

The council and primary school had highlighted an Ofsted report which warned that running separate schools on the same site had made management “unnecessarily complicated.”

A new school logo has been designed, and nursery workers have been appointed to their new roles in the merged school.

No members of staff have lost their jobs. The nursery’s longest serving member of staff, Melanie Pickett, said: “Every day has been different and has brought different challenges, but the bottom line has always been that working with young children is hugely exciting and rewarding.

“We want to continue to provide outstanding early years education and that might include a little bit of change, but the communication between the two schools has been really good.”

Botley Primary School head Alison Marsh, who will lead the merged school, added: “It is very exciting for everybody involved, and we are all learning about how to work together and go from strength to strength.”

She said parents would notice no difference in the early years provision, other than management changes. The on-site Children’s Centre will also come under the same management structure, but will operate as a separate institution.

Nursery staff and governors paid tribute to former Elms Road head Alison Brockliss, who left at Easter, for leading the nursery to its ‘outstanding’ rating from Ofsted in 2010.

Elms Road governors presented Botley Primary School with a magnolia tree, to be planted in the school grounds this summer, to symbolise the spirit of the nursery continuing in the new school.