Oldham nursery clinches positive rating after Ofsted nosedive

A nursery in Fitton Hill, Oldham, is clawing back its ‘outstanding’ reputation after taking a nosedive in an Ofsted report last year. The latest re-evaluation deemed Brighter Beginnings ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ in all categories. 

The family-owned childcare centre started with top marks in its first inspection in 2018 but the rating plummeted in 2023 when inspectors were called in after ‘a safeguarding incident’, according to Ofsted. 

But a year later, inspector Lois Hulley found the Brighter Beginnings team, who look after 32 two to four-year-olds and provide Free Nursery Places, were determined to reclaim their positive ranking. She gave an overall rating of ‘good’, writing that “Children are happy and well cared for. Compassionate staff warmly welcome children and their families into the well-resourced nursery”. 

Hulley found that any safeguarding concerns raised by the Ofsted call-in had been resolved, with an “open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children’s interests first”. 

She also gave the nursery an ‘outstanding’ in the personal development category. Brighter Beginnings provided “meaningful opportunities to deepen all children’s learning about themselves, communities, and environments beyond their own”, she said, with a deep understanding of the differing experiences children brought with them when starting nursery.   

The praise stands in contrast to last year’s report, which was the nursery’s first inspection since the start of the pandemic. There were clear teething problems in caring for kids who’d at that stage spent most of their lives at home during lockdowns. 

The inspector, Layla Davies, described a “chaotic environment” where kids were “unsettled” and “do not listen to staff instructions”. She suggested that “children are not supported to make good levels of progress” and “the curriculum is not implemented consistently well”.

The report was made after Ofsted received a notification of “a safeguarding incident where staff failed to act swiftly when worried about the conduct of a colleague”. But it found that leaders had already taken action to improve training at the time. 

The nursery, which has a sensory room and quiet space and recently opened a baby room, has rapidly turned things around. The main critique in their latest report was about taking teaching to the ‘next level’. 

Hulley wrote: “Staff do not always identify opportunities to take children’s learning swiftly to the next level. Occasionally, children do not receive the support required to become deeply engaged and extend their learning, to help them achieve as much as they can.”