Team effort at nursery

Glowingreportfromexperts

A Killearn Nursery has been given a glowing review by inspectors.

Heron House Early Years Centre is a private nursery located in a detached house, operated in partnership with Stirling Council, with a roll of 50 children.

There are three separate rooms for different age groups – 0-2, 2-3 and 3.5 years – as well as two out-of-school care rooms for children before school, after school and during holidays.

Inspectors who visited on March 6 found a number of key strengths including “confident children who are happy, settled and making good progress in their learning and development as a result of the nurturing approaches of practitioners”.

They also praised the “welcoming and inclusive environment” where the manager and her team have established positive relationships and a strong sense of community with children and families.

Commitment and effort of the management and practitioners were said to be bringing about ongoing improvement of the setting and a quality service to children and families.

Areas identified for improvement, which were discussed with the manager and a Stirling Council representative, included that the nursery should continue to strengthen self-evaluation and monitoring to ensure that a structured robust approach to identify what is working well and what needs to improve.

They also said that it should continue to embed, as planned, processes for planning, tracking and monitoring children’s learning to ensure experiences consistently lead to progression in learning across the curriculum.

The inspectors reported: “The team work very well together and are focused on delivering a quality service which meets the needs of children and their families.

“Their strong relationships lead to a warm and happy ethos within the setting which in turn ensures almost all children are secure and confident.

“There is scope to increase children’s leadership responsibilities to ensure they play the role they are capable of within the setting.

“A research project between the setting and the early years setting in the local primary school would continue to build on existing professional learning opportunities.”

Families were said to be actively involved, including in charity fundraising events, and in the setting up of a “baby garden”.

Parents were also involved in selecting new staff members.

Parents were said to be “extremely positive” about the support they received from the manager and practitioners.

The team work well together and are focused