Ofsted report

Allendale Pre-school received an unannounced Ofsted inspection on Monday 9th February. After spending the day with the staff, children and speaking to committee members and parents, we were graded good in all areas! Which we are all delighted with!

This was our first inspection since I took over as leader with a new staff team, in the past couple of years we have, with the help and support of the committee and parents, made many changes to how Pre-school is run, the way we provide teaching opportunities and how parents are involved with Pre-school. The inspector had many wonderful things to say about Pre-school that I hope you will take the time to read about in the report EY403313 Allendale Pre-School Playgroup 2015. It has not been published in the Ofsted website yet. They are going to amend the address and phone number within the next few days.

Some of the notes I took from the feedback session at the end of the inspection commented that Pre-school staff have a good knowledge of how children learn and develop, that there is a fantastic partnership with parents – she could tell parents are welcome and comfortable within the environment and with staff, Pre-school communicates really well with families, our assessments of children are brilliant, that children are ‘school ready’, we build the independence of children very well, we have good safeguarding, whistleblowing and inclusion systems in place. These are just a few of my notes if you want to anymore please do not hesitate to come and talk to me.

And while we recognise there are still areas for improvement, we feel these areas are achievable and plans are already in place to address them.

The report says we are not graded as outstanding because ‘the manager has not yet fully maximised the systems for performance management. Staff do not frequently share their knowledge and expertise with each other, in order to build on their already good practice so that children make the best possible progress’.

To improve the systems for performance management, we have looked at introducing staff observations. These would be done by other staff members twice a year with a feedback session after each to discuss and look for areas of improvement, these would be in addition to the half termly meetings I have with the staff and the annual appraisals with the committee that are currently in place.

I’ll just add a huge thank you to all staff, past and present committee, parents and carers and of course the fabulous children, for everyone’s hard work and commitment to make Pre-school fabulous! We would love any feedback you have, so please feel free to speak to us, email or phone us, or if you want to do it confidentially you can always pop letters in the postbox outside.

Many thanks Dani