Amersham: Beehive Montessori School owner announces closure

The Beehive Montessori School in Amersham told parents it was closing at the end of the Autumn term.

The manager and owner Lyndsey Nelson, 56, shared a heartfelt letter with the parents, saying the pressures of running the school had sadly become too much to carry on.

Lyndsey told the Free Press: “I started very young. It was very clear from an early age what I wanted to do, it just clicked. I love teaching and I’m passionate about Montessori.”

However, the pressures on educators had changed “to the point it’s very hard and you’re trying to juggle so many balls,” she said.

A lot of her time is spent on sorting out paperwork, which can be “very exhausting,” especially because she would like to spend most of the time preparing for the children, Lyndsey said.  

Children at the Beehive Montessori School (Image: Lyndsey Nelson)

“It really does take over your life. It always has been but there’s a lot more pressure on you," she said. 

Despite her passion for education, Lyndsey has been “losing money for a few years now” and she had exhausted her resources.

Sadly, Lyndsey was not able to afford to pay staff for extra hours to allow the nursery to provide longer hours, which many parents’ childcare needs require nowadays – something that larger day and chain nurseries may be able to do. 

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In her letter to the parents, Lyndsey said she was “explaining, not complaining” because she has had “the most wonderful career doing something that I love and which truly fulfills me.”

But Lyndsey was starting to feel the physically demanding job on her body, including the regular setting up and taking down of the nursery equipment at St Michael’s Church Hall.

“The stress and everything is sometimes so much on your shoulders. It is often family and friends who point it out to you, because you’ve lived like this your whole life, but when you take a step back you realise it’s not normal,” she said.

Lyndsey, who doesn't have her own children, said her parents were also getting older.

“I feel like I’m always putting the school first and I feel I need to look after them.”

It was a shame that nursery staff are paid “such low salaries,” she pointed out.

“Childcare is the most precious thing to people and they have a huge responsibility looking after children, and they are not paid well at all. Most people love what they do and it would be good if they could make a living. You work a lot of extra hours for nothing apart from the joy of doing what you do. It’s a real vocation, but that’s not right,” she added.

"This has been a very hard decision to make. I care so much for you and your families that I’ve tried so very hard to find a satisfactory outcome right up to the last minute. It’s been a very emotional time for me because your children are so precious to me," Lyndsey wrote to the parents.