Delight as Wigan nursery is rated good

Staff and youngsters at The Wendy House celebrate

Ofsted found “significant improvements” had been made at The Wendy House Nursery, based at The Edge in Wigan.

It had been given the lowest possible rating in the autumn, with a report stating children’s health and safety was “compromised”, teaching was “inadequate” and staff were “overwhelmed” by the demands of the youngsters.

But a new inspection found changes had been made and the centre was rated as “good”.

Inspector Richard Sutcliffe wrote: “The manager has successfully addressed the weaknesses identified at the previous visits.

“The significant improvements made contribute to the good outcomes for children.”

He found the manager had “high expectations” of staff and children and a “genuine commitment” to support staff to improve their practice.

“Valuable” information was gathered from parents before children joined the nursery and arrangements to help them settle in were “particularly effective”.

Children made “good progress” in all areas of learning and developed a “good range” of skills ready to start school.

They were described as “caring towards each other”, “well behaved” and “happy and confident”.

The “enthusiastic” staff taught “well-planned and suitably challenging activities”, accurately assessed the progress children made and embedded the teaching of numeracy and literacy throughout the nursery.

The inspector said: “Staff are active participants in children’s learning.

“They make learning enjoyable and exciting, resulting in children being engrossed in their learning.

“Teaching is consistently good throughout the nursery.”

The relationship between staff, children and parents was described as the “bedrock of success” for the nursery.

Ofsted suggested the nursery should further enhance the existing partnerships with parents by gathering more information on how it can continue to improve.

Manager Wendy Porter said: “We are very pleased to have our ‘good’ rating back. The Ofsted report is a pleasure to read, as it highlights the quality of our provision.”