A Collier Row nursery has been rated “inadequate” – with a notice to improve.

Zeeba Day Care in Mowbrays Mission, Mowbrays Road, dropped from a “good” rating in October 2012.

An Ofsted inspection judged the nursery inadequate over the effectiveness of its leadership and management, how well it met the needs of its children and its contribution to the wellbeing of the youngsters.

A report revealed concern that managers did not support and supervise less able staff and apprentices to enable them to understand their roles and responsibilities.

It said: “Consequently, children are cared for by staff who are not suitable to do so as they lack knowledge of how to care for, safeguard and educate them.”

The nursery was also rated “inadequate” for failing to inform parents of incidents involving their children. It also neglected to tell parents about staff changes and new employees. This is in breach of a legal requirement and the nursery has been told to improve this.

Staff were found to be failing to use information about children’s individual needs in order to plan a “challenging, enjoyable environment” for them.

The inspection was carried out by Caroline Preston.

‘Uninspiring’

She said the environment in the pre-school room was “uninspiring”, leading to children missing opportunities to develop their learning and ability to make progress.

“This affects their ability to make progress and does not prepare them for the next stage in their learning,” Ms Preston said.

She added that staff monitoring of the educational programme was “inadequate” and children were not offered varied learning experiences to help them progress. Again, the nursery has been issued with a notice to improve this.

The report, however, said that staff did support children with special educational needs and disabilities well. They worked closely with agencies to plan support and guidance and children were “happy and settled at the nursery”.

“They have good relationships with permanent staff, which means they develop self-confidence,” Ms Preston noted.

Manager Joanne English said: “We disagree with the grading. We just achieved a good rating in October 2012. Ofsted revisited which had been triggered by a complaint. At the time we were going through a change of management, this hindered the outcome on this inspection. We have had full support from our parents, have run parent forums and parent questionnaires. We gathered information that our parents feel they receive an outstanding service. However we take this as a learning curve and look forward to the re inspection when we will be gaining back the good rating that we deserve.”