St John's Under 5s Pre-School, Great Horton, rated 'inadequate' by Ofsted

The St John’s Under 5s Pre-School, based at St John’s Parish Church in Walshaw Street, Great Horton, received the damning report following an inspection on October 1.

The inspection uncovered major safeguarding issues at the pre-school, and also significant problems with the assessment of children’s learning and relationships with parents.

The pre-school at St John’s has been in operation since 1987, and had been rated ‘Good’ since the earliest Ofsted report available in 2004.

Vicar of St John’s, Rev John Bavington, said the pre-school feels “hard done by” by the report, and work is already underway on improvements.

In the inspection report, Ofsted said: “Children are not safeguarded.

“Staff have a poor understanding of child protection, particularly wider safeguarding issues.

“Furthermore, the manager, also the lead safeguarding practitioner, has not attended a child protection training course, nor does she recognise and report allegations against staff.

“The safeguarding policy and procedures are not in line with legislative changes.

“The provider does not have regard to, or keep up to date with, the government’s safeguarding statutory guidance documents, to support safeguarding practices.

“Observations and assessments of children’s progress are not frequent or accurate enough, and some are of poor quality.

“Staff do not sufficiently plan to support children’s individual learning needs and help them make the progress they should, particularly where they are working below expected development levels.

“Staff are unaware of the requirement to complete the required progress check for children aged between two and three years.

“Staff do not support children’s early communication and language skills well enough where they speak English as an additional language.

“Staff do not sufficiently inform parents about children’s progress and involve them in supporting children’s learning at home.

“The provider and manager do not sufficiently monitor the quality of teaching and learning.

“Consequently, there are weaknesses and inconsistencies in how children are taught and the progress made by some children.”

Ofsted did say the pre-school creates “a stimulation and welcoming indoor learning environment to support children’s independent learning”, and there are “positive relationships” between staff and children.

Rev Bavington, chair of the church council, said: “Our feeling is the nursery has always been rated good and do feel a little bit hard done by.

“Parents are very happy, and Ofsted noted this. We have been running for more than 30 years and provide a very much needed, high-quality, low cost service to families, many of whom would struggle to provide childcare.

“We have already invited experienced childcare workers from the church to meet with the nursery manager and talk about improvements, and we will be meeting with Bradford Council Early Years to get their advice.

“We are looking forward to the future and aiming to get back to being a Good nursery.”

Following the inspection, Ofsted has ordered the pre-school to undertake a number of urgent improvements, including training staff on safeguarding, and putting in place effective observation and assessments of children.

The pre-school, opened in 1987, has seven members of staff, six of whom hold appropriate early years qualifications; one at Level 2, four at Level 3, and one at Level 4, and has space for 25 children on its roll.