Ofsted inspectors praise Longridge nursery

The 105 youngsters, 21 staff and owner manager Jane Priest at the Little People at the Limes nursery in Berry Lane were visited at the end of 2017 by Ofsted inspector Lisa Bolton who rated the nursery as ‘good’ – the second best rating behind Outstanding.

It marked three years since the last visit which was also rated good.

“Our fabulous staff all did amazingly well and the inspector praised us highly,” said Jane.

“She found we have a strong commitment to providing a high-quality service for our children and families, and we have a collaborative staff team that is passionate and dedicated.”

Good ratings were in leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare, and special needs support was ‘superb.’

Jane added that the aim was for an ‘Outstanding’ mark-up on the next Ofsted after Inspector Bolton found that two areas that were preventing the highest rating.

These were were that staff practice was not monitored rigorously enough to strengthen teaching quality to that level, and precise targets for improvement were not identified.

The already good quality of teaching was said to need 'building up', self-evaluation should be strengthened, and precise development targets are needed to be identified to improve outcomes for the children and achieve the top mark.

Jane said: “We are making steps towards meeting our goal to reach ‘outstanding.’ The inspector said we have everything there to achieve this.

“And, we’d like to say a big ‘thank you’ to all parents who spoke to her, and to our families - we most certainly couldn’t do it without them!”