Top marks for Bower early learning and childcare centre in report by Care Inspectorate
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
AN early learning and childcare centre in Bower has received top marks in a report by the Care Inspectorate.
Bower Busy Bees was awarded ratings of very good for its care, play and learning as well as for its leadership, staff team and its setting. It was given five out of a possible six in each of these categories. One is unsatisfactory and six is excellent.
The centre is registered to provide a care service to a maximum of 12 children aged from two years to those not yet attending primary school.
The service operates within converted farm steadings in Bower. The accommodation has two main rooms and an upstairs room. Across the courtyard the children can access a large outside natural play space with extensive resources which supports curiosity and creativity.
The nursery is committee led and works in partnership with The Highland Council to provide funded early learning and childcare.
The unannounced inspection took place on 30 August 2022 and was carried out by one inspector from the Care Inspectorate.
The report said: "We identified significant improvement in relation to the management and leadership of the service since our previous inspection. The strong leadership resulted in a staff team who had high aspirations and confidence in their capacity to support children and families to reach their potential.
Staff, families and children had been involved in promoting a shared vision for the setting. This contributed to the strong relationships families had with the service as they felt valued and respected.
A quality assurance calendar was in place that ensured purposeful audits of various aspects of the nursery were routinely carried out. We saw these to be outcome focused and detailed the impact they had on children. This contributed positively to the team continually reflecting on the experiences of care and learning children were receiving."
There was effective use of "robust quality assurance processes," which ensured various aspects of the service were being reviewed and monitored in "a focused and meaningful way."
"This meant that areas for improvement had been identified, shared with staff and actions taken to make positive changes to children's experiences. This resulted in very good outcomes for children and their families.
"The manager had developed a variety of methods to ensure that communication was shared across the team effectively. This contributed to the very good team ethos and allowed all staff to be involved in leading the improvement journey of the setting. This resulted in a whole staff team working well together to ensure all children benefited from high quality care and support," stated the report.
It added: "Children benefited from a caring and nurturing staff team who knew them well. They recognised that
continuity of care was important for children. Effective use was made of staff experience, knowledge, and skills, to ensure children's experiences across their whole day was positive. Parents were very complimentary of the staff team."
