A York nursery has been rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted – with warnings that ‘children’s safety and well-being cannot be assured’.
Staff at the Walmgate Day Nursery do not follow procedures for children who have food allergies and intolerances, Ofsted says.
And leaders and managers at the nursery were ‘unable to provide evidence that they have carried out checks on the suitability of some staff’.
Ofsted inspectors who visited the nursery on May 31, and whose report has just been published, identified three areas where the nursery must improve to ‘meet the requirements of the early years foundation stage’.
It said the nursery must:
- Ensure that procedures to manage children’s special dietary requirements are understood and implemented by all staff’
- Make sure that effective procedures are in place to demonstrate that checks have been carried out to ensure that staff are suitable to work with children
- Improve staff’s delivery of the curriculum, with a greater focus on individual children’s learning needs.
Walmgate Day Nursery has a total of 62 early years children on its roll, and places for 42 children. It employs 15 childcare staff.
There are good things about the nursery, Ofsted stressed in its report.
“Children are generally happy and settled in the nursery,” the report says.
“Children behave well. They receive regular praise for using good manners. Children learn to share and take turns.
“Staff build positive relationships with children. They give children plenty of cuddles and reassurance if they become unsettled or unwell.
“Toddlers confidently talk to staff as they engage in role-play activities. In the pre-school room, children develop their mathematical skills through skilful questioning.”
The nursery had also made some areas of improvement since an earlier inspection in January this year, inspectors said - even though the overall Ofsted rating has gone down from ‘requires improvement’ then to 'inadequate’ in the latest inspection.
New procedures to meet individual children’s dietary needs have been introduced, inspectors noted. “However, on the day of inspection, a snack provided by staff in one of the rooms was not suitable for all children in the room’.
On child safety, inspectors said the nursery carried out ‘appropriate checks with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) on new staff members’. “However, the manager was unable to provide evidence that any other suitability checks have been carried out,” inspectors said. “This compromises children’s safety.”
Inspectors say they were told that references were checked for recent appointments. “But there are no records of this,” they said. “The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.”
The nursery was rated ‘inadequate’ overall. Personal development and leadership and management were both rated inadequate, while quality of education and behaviour and attitudes were both ‘requires improvement’.
Read the full Ofsted report here
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