Inverness’s Raigmore Primary School Nursery told to make improvements following inspection from Scotland’s Care Inspectorate

A primary school nursery has been told to make improvements after it received weak ratings in a number of areas during an unannounced inspection.

Raigmore Primary School Nursery was visited by staff from the Care Inspectorate in late October.

And they have now issued their report on the nursery, which can care for up to 54 children aged from three up to the cusp of entering primary school.

It scored a four out of six, meaning "good", for the strength and quality of its staff.

But it scored two out of six, or "weak" in three other areas - for how good its "care, play and learning", its "setting" and its "leadership" are.

They said that although they "identified some strengths" in those areas, "these were compromised by significant weaknesses".

Summarising their findings, the inspectors said: "Children experienced interactions with staff which were warm, positive and nurturing."

And added: ""Children experienced, calm, unhurried snack and lunch times."

But they also said: "Children's needs were not being consistently and effectively met as personal plans were not always updated to reflect current needs.

"Identified strategies to support children's care and learning needs were not consistently used.

"There was the potential for children's health and wellbeing to be impacted by inconsistencies in infection prevention and control measures.

"Some quality assurance processes were in the early stages of implementation and were not yet having a measurable impact on improvements.

"Limited progress with improvements was limiting impact on children's outcomes and experiences."

The nursery has now been told to begin a number of improvements.

By February 21 they expect the nursery to ensure personal plans set out "children's current needs and how they will be met", that all staff "understand the information within the personal plans and use this to effectively meet each child's needs", and that personal plans are regularly reviewed.

The nursery has also been told to ensure infection prevention and control measures are in line with official guidance after a "number of issues" were identified in that area - including the need for more frequent cleaning of furnishings and floorings. The report said this had been partly the result of staff absences during the inspection and the report stressed the need for cleaning arrangements "which take into account cleaning team absences".

In the area of leadership, the report also asked that some requirements be implemented by February 21.

However, they also acknowledged that the manager of the nursery, who had recently become the school's head teacher while managing the early learning centre, "had been dealing with some unique challenges across the school community.... which had taken up much of the manager's time".

Nevertheless, they added that the nursery "must ensure there are sufficient resources to support the continuous improvement of the early learning centre service".

The inspectors added: "The manager had begun to put some systems in place for quality assurance. However, these were at very early stages of implementation. This meant it was too soon to discern any impact on children's outcomes and experiences".

Moving onto the staff team, which were rated “good” by the inspectors, the report praised “several strengths” which “impacted positively on outcomes for children and clearly outweighed areas for improvement”.

They continued: “Children's care and wellbeing benefitted from staff who communicated professionally with warmth and compassion. Staff worked well together as a team and communicated effectively. For example, they informed each other when tasks or responding to children's needs took them away from an area or room.

“Staff breaks were planned to ensure that children were supported by enough staff at key times of the day, such as lunch time. This meant that for busier times of the day, some consideration had been given to children's continuity of care.”

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