Education watchdogs, Ofsted, have praised staff and students at a Bracknell pre-school after they received a surprise inspection.

Binfield Pre-School, located at Jocks Lane Park Pavillion, is a small nursery catering for children aged two to four years old.

The surprise and unannounced visit occurred on September 9, 2024 following an inadequate rating in May 2024.

Deputy manager, Simone Verity who has been working at the nursery for nearly four years said that the staff were ecstatic when they discovered that their Ofsted rating had improved dramatically from 'inadequate' to a 'good' rating.

She said: It’s great that everyone can actually see how hard we actually work. The previous result was so hard breaking. We were crying we were so happy about this result.

“I found that the spontaneous inspection was better than the previous one because we didn’t have time to stress about it.”

Ofsted inspectors noticed that leaps have been made due to a range of actions taken by the leadership and staff to enhance quality of care and education at the early years setting.

Leaders and staff have prioritised strengthening the procedures in place to ensure those working with children continue to be suitable.

They have demonstrated warm and cheerful demeanour towards children, thereby fostering a sense of belonging among them.

This has been crucial for developing kindness towards one another.

Coupled with reinforcement of expected behaviours and teaching safety practices, like handling scissors safely, children are shown an early understanding of risk management.

Children are seen to trust the adults in their care, as the staff effectively engage with them during play.

Emma Hone, the manager of Binfield Pre-School said that their previous inadequate rating reflected the increase in children with special needs and lack of resources.

“Looking back we were encouraged by the LA to increase our numbers because of the government releasing more funding. Alot of the new children that were coming through to us needed speech and language support or support with development and we got ourselves so overwhelmed,” Emma said.

“We couldn't support all the children in the best way that we should, and I think that's where we ended up inadequate.”

Staff commented that with help and support from the Local Authority (LA), they were able to step back and look at the nursery in a different light.

She added: “We sort of stepped back and looked at what we could do and what areas we can improve. So we reduced our resource and ee looked at our daily routine. We put in extra group times. But the main thing was being realistic about who we could support.”

Despite Ofsted claiming that they would remove the one-word judgements, the pre-school received a ‘Good’ Ofsted rating, with a good score for all areas which were judged. These included, the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management.