Nursery in South Tyneside judged inadequate by Ofsted after inspectors raise safety concerns

During its latest inspection, Stanley's Daycare, at Bede Children’s Centre in Jarrow, was judged to be good for behaviour and attitudes and quality of education but deemed inadequate overall due to not hitting the required standard for personal development and leadership and management.

A primary cause for concern throughout the report was safeguarding of the children which inspectors described as “not effective”.

In particular, the report raised concerns over the supervision of children.

Writing in her report, lead inspector Elizabeth Fish stated: “Children's safety is compromised. This is because the management team has not taken effective action to tackle all weaknesses that they have previously identified in practice.

"Staff working with children do not always ensure that they can see what is happening and what other children are doing.

“Staff do not always supervise children well enough to make sure they are consistently safe.

“For example, children who were running indoors were not noticed. This poses a risk of accidents. The management team has previously identified this as a

weakness.

"However, they have not provided sufficient support or training to staff to ensure that improvements are consistently embedded."

The nursery is overseen by South Tyneside Council who said they are “extremely disappointed” with the judgement and have moved to reassure parents.

A Council spokesperson said: “We are extremely disappointed with the findings of the report. Whilst we must accept these in relation to some aspects of safeguarding, we wish to be clear that no immediate safeguarding concerns were found at the setting.

"We have already started to progress learning points from the inspection process and have taken swift action to put in place an improvement plan which we look forward to Ofsted re-inspecting in six months."

While the nursery was judged to inadequate overall, the inspectors commended the setting on a number of aspects of educational provision including support for language development, the “very good progress” of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and positive relationships with parents to whom they provide “advice and support on a range of issues”.

SEE ALSO: School’s Eco Warriors launch clothing recycling scheme to benefit environment and disadvantaged families

The council spokesperson added: "We want to reassure parents and carers that although there is an overall inadequate grading, the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes were judged as good, and the inspectors found much positive practice within the nursery.

"This includes finding that children are happy when they attend, they develop good relationships with staff and there was recognition that nursery staff go out of their way to support children and their families, working well with parents and carers, who speak highly of the provision.

"The report recognises that staff have high expectations for what children can achieve, with all children making very good progress. We are very proud of this acknowledgement.”

The nursery is due to be inspected again in six months with inspectors having set two targets; “to ensure staff supervise children effectively at all times” and to “improve support to staff to ensure practice continues to improve and weaknesses are addressed”.

A message from the editor:

Support your Gazette and become a subscriber today.

Enjoy unlimited access to all of our news and sport, see fewer ads, experience faster load times, test your brain with daily puzzles and get access to exclusive newsletters.

Your support for our journalism means we can continue telling South Tyneside’s stories for generations to come. Click here to subscribe - and click here to get a snapshot of the Gazette’s news and sport to your inbox through our email newsletters.