A TOWN centre pre-school has expressed its disappointment after an inspection found that it requires improvement.

Following a recent visit from Ofsted, Winton Pre-School was found to require improvement in all four key areas after being rated “good” in the last inspection two years ago.

Inspectors identified that the strengths of the pre-school lie in how the staff develop warm relationships with the children, supporting their emotional needs, and that they enjoy playing outdoors learning physical skills such as watering the plants and riding bicycles on a track.

According to the report, where it falls short is in not providing parents with a summary of how well their child is doing, not using child development information to provide learning plans and not working widely with schools for greater continuity of learning.

On the effectiveness of leadership and management the findings state that “the manager uses a new assessment system to adequately monitor children’s progress” but “she does not have the fully effective procedures to monitor the quality of teaching and manage the staff performance”.

It also identified that “targets for individual staff are not sufficiently precise to address variations in the quality of teaching”.

Assessing the quality of teaching, the report finds that “staff provide purposeful and well-targeted support for individual children in small focus groups” and that they “have recently improved the environment so children can choose what to play with.”

The pre-school does not meet the required standard in that “they fail to provide parents with a written summary of the progress check when their child is between the age of two and three years”.

In terms of children’s personal development, “not all children are helped to develop independent care skills, such as toileting, in readiness for starting school”.

Regarding outcomes for children, the findings show that “children, including those with special educational needs, make typical progress from their starting points” and that they “enjoy songs and stories which help their developing language and communication” but “the inconsistent quality of teaching prevents them from making good progress”.

Winton Pre-school manager Naomi Peters, said: “We were very disappointed with the Ofsted report.

“The staff work really hard to make the pre-school a safe, nurturing, exciting place for the children to learn and play in and we feel that the report does not reflect this. We are engaging with several schools in the area and working with each other in order to develop greater continuity for the children’s learning.

“We have also put new planning into place and we are working hard to meet all the criteria required. Ofsted are returning within a year and we are striving towards an outstanding report.”