Nurseries in Portsmouth: Rainbow Corner Nursery in Southsea has celebrated its 40th anniversary

Rainbow Corner Nursery School in Victoria Road, was set up in 1983 by the Whitehead family who began their business in their home.

Lucy Whitehead, the nursery school manager, took over the nursery when her parents decided to retire – and now the school has been thriving for four decades.

This week, the nursery has been celebrating the milestone and welcomed the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, Tom Coles and Nikki Coles to mark the occasion.

Lucy said: ‘It is great. Obviously, we can’t believe that we have got to 40 years, it is scary to think it has been that long. I was five or six when my mum opened up the nursery school, she started it from one room in our home.

‘It was one of the first ones to open and over the years it grew and grew as the demand for childcare and nurseries increased so for many years I lived with it. Then I took over from my parents when they retired about 13 years ago so I have been running it since then and it has been nice that it has been kept in the family.’

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The school has been recognised as outstanding by Ofsted and the children have all been involved in a number of festivities this week. Children have been treated to parties each day and there will also be characters including Spiderman and Elsa attending the nursery for everyone to enjoy.

Lucy added: ‘It is still as successful today which is lovely – we have had a week-long celebration. We decided to do something every day this week because we have some part-time children so we didn’t want anyone to miss out.

‘We have got the parents coming in as well to thank them for the continued support and we just wanted to include as many people as possible. We are trying to bring everybody together and we recognise the significance that we have reached 40 years.’

For more information about the Rainbow Corner Nursery School, click here.