PARENTS have given their backing to staff who walked out of a Hampshire nursery over working conditions.

Dozens of young children and toddlers paid a tearful farewell to the nannies and assistants at the Poppins Learning Centre in Abshot, near Warsash, as 11 members of staff handed in their notice.

More than half the staff at the nursery, which looks after 75 children aged from three months to five years, quit their jobs on Monday following strike action last week, as reported in later editions of yesterday's Daily Echo.

When they arrived yesterday employees and parents discovered the staff had been replaced by cover workers and would not be required to work their two months' notice unless requested to by the nursery's director.

Nursery manager Jennie Arnold was among the staff who quit her job.

She said: "It has been a very stressful decision but we feel we have to act in the best interests of the children."

Supported by her colleagues, Mrs Arnold, whose two-year-old son Kai goes to the nursery, said the decision was a direct result of how staff had been treated by nursery director, Richard Lewis.

She said: "We are all very close and get on well as a team and we have the full support of the parents.

"But we just couldn't carry on the way things were any longer."

Mrs Arnold said staff and parents were horrified and upset when they arrived in the morning to find that children would be looked after by staff drafted in from another nursery.

Of about 19 members of staff, four went into work to continue working with the children.

Dad Richard Padgham, a social worker from Locks Heath, gave his support to the staff who have looked after two of his children, including his one-year-old son Harry, who currently goes to Poppins.

"It's unbelievable that the children are expected to work with new members of staff straight away. It takes time to get to know nannies and nursery workers and children need the familiarity to feel secure away from their parents."

Director of Poppins Early Learning, Richard Lewis, was unable to comment before the Daily Echo went to press.