Harrogate nursery praised for focus on children’s development after covid

A Harrogate nursery has been praised by Ofsted for delivering a “safe” environment where children feel “confident” and content.

Acorns In Harrogate, based in the grounds of Hookstone Chase Primary School, has maintained its ‘good’ rating earned at its last inspection in 2019.

In its latest report, inspector Pat Edmond said:

“Children are happy and settled at the nursery. Staff recognise the impact that the covid-19 pandemic has had on children’s development. They have sensibly prioritised children’s personal, social and emotional development.

“The success of this is evident throughout the setting. Children are relaxed, confident and very well behaved.”

Visiting the nursery in June, Ms Edmond found its staff had a good understanding of children’s development and were able to effectively support children with special educational needs.

She said the children enjoyed the ‘healthy, home-cooked meals” on offer and staff helped them to understand about their health, both through food and drink and by spending time outdoors.

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Activities helped children to develop skills, she said, from babies crawling to reach their favourite books to older children learning to count through fun group tasks.

The report added:

“Managers lead a stable staff team. On the whole, leaders have a good oversight of the quality of provision.

“They recognise when aspects of the provision require further development. They strive to put plans in place to improve matters. Both the baby room and toddler room are particularly well supported.

“However, monitoring is not as robust as it could be. There are minor inconsistencies in how well the curriculum is delivered, both indoors and outdoors.”

Ms Edmond recommended continuing to develop systems for monitoring the delivery of the curriculum, and ensuring all staff and parents knew what children needed to do to expand their vocabulary.

Responding to the new report, nursery manager Rebecca Lister said the staff were pleased with the outcome and had enjoyed showing the inspector around the setting, despite the visit taking place on a rainy day.

She added:

“The improvement area identified by the inspector has already been addressed by the creation of a beautiful home learning area with information about the songs, signs, stories that we are learning for the week coupled with learning bags for parents to take home and share with their children.

“It was wonderful that the inspector recognised the strong relationships our children share with their key practitioners, who take great pride in really getting to know the children and their extended families.”