A family-run village day nursery on Chester’s outskirts which strives to go the extra mile has had an ‘outstanding’ report from Ofsted.

Guilden Sutton Day Nursery on the A V Wilding Business Park is celebrating the top of the table jump, up from ‘satisfactory’ (now ‘requires improvement’), in 2012.

The purpose built nursery, opened in 1998, has 19 childcare staff with 82 youngsters on roll aged three months to five years.

It offers before and after school care in local village schools and holiday care at Airbus UK. The nursery is owned by Lesley Stone and Pat Mitchell and the manager is Cat Hirst.

Inspector Sharon Hennam-Dale observed the quality of teaching indoors and outdoors and assessed the effect this has on children’s learning, examined records and spoke to parents and took account of their views among other aspects.

Vision

She says the manager has ‘a strong vision’ for the continuous improvement of the nursery and has made ‘significant changes’ since the last inspection to drive the quality of provision to an outstanding level.

The inspector commented: “She leads a highly reflective and motivated staff team who demonstrate an uncompromising commitment towards achieving excellence in all areas.

“Teaching is consistently of a very high quality and has improved substantially since the last inspection.

“Staff are well qualified and display an excellent understanding of how children learn and develop.”

Staff and leaders ‘meticulously track’ progress and respond quickly when any gaps in learning are identified or additional support is needed.

Children at the nursery ‘behave exceptionally well’ while staff have ‘consistently high expectations and help children understand and learn how to manage behaviour.’

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They work very closely with parents and other professionals and a shared approach to learning contributes ‘significantly’ to the effectiveness of meeting the children’s specific needs.

New ideas and initiatives are continually discussed and introduced and the children are very happy.

Highly effective teaching is used to inspire and motivate the children and pre-school children build ‘excellent language skills’ as they talk to staff about their activities.

Excellent progress

All the youngsters, including disabled children and those with special educational needs, make excellent progress. The ‘outstanding’ judgment has been made in all areas including leadership and management, the quality of teaching and learning and overall effectiveness of the nursery.

A parent commented: “It’s like a big happy family where everyone is made to feel special.”

Proprietors Pat and Lesley said: “We are very proud of everyone within the nursery. The team have been with us for many years and do a wonderful job lead by our management team who are very hard working and professional.

“Everyone’s primary concern is to make the nursery the best experience for children in their formative years and we are delighted that Ofsted have recognised this”.

To further improve Ofsted said the nursery should explore even more ways to reflect the views of children and review the effect this has on the quality of teaching and practice.