Durness Nursery praised for its 'nurturing care and support'
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A NORTH Sutherland nursery has been given an improved ranking in two out of four areas assessed after an inspector from the Care Inspectorate visited the facility for the second time in eight months.
Durness Nursery was initially inspected in September 2022 and judged it to be adequate in the four fields assessed – care, play and learning; setting; leadership; and staff team.
The Care Inspectorate uses a six point scale ranging from unsatisfactory to weak, adequate, good, very good and excellent.
Its definition of “adequate” is “where strengths only just outweigh weaknesses”.
A number of recommendation for improvements were made at that time of the September inspection, including the development of personal plans setting out individual children’s current needs and how to meet them.
An inspector made an unannounced return to the nursery, which is located within Durness Primary School and has places for up to 10 children aged from two to school age, on May 17.
Their report has just been put in the public domain.
The rating for the school’s care play and learning; and staff team remains at adequate but the school’s setting and leadership has been given a boosted rating of "good".
The newly published report notes: “At the time of the inspection, there was not a consistent staff team which impacted on the continuity of care for children.”
Since the September visited, the inspector found that various recommendations, including that personal plans be developed, had been followed through.
However work still had to take place on some of the other recommendations.
The inspector listed as a strength of the school the “nurturing care and support” experienced by children who were described as “happy and confident in the setting and the daily routines”.
It was felt that quality assurance processes needed to be “embedded to secure sustained improvements across the service”.
It was also stated that “the use of open-ended materials and real life resources could be extended further across the playroom to offer more creative learning and play experiences.
