KIDS at Treetops Too Nursery in Saltcoats are “happy, settled children who enjoy their time at nursery” according to the latest HM Inspection Report.

The report by Education Scotland commended the nursery for its “caring practitioners” whom it noted “have developed strong, positive relationships with children and families”.

It also praised recently developed self-evaluation processes within the nursery which the report noted had “a positive impact on children’s learning”.

Education Scotland graded the nursery as ‘satisfactory’ on four quality indicators. These included: ‘leadership of change’, ‘learning, teaching and assessment’, ‘securing children’s progress’, and ‘ensuring wellbeing, equality and inclusion’.

The Care Inspectorate also graded the nursery on four settings. It rated the qualities of ‘care and support’, ‘staffing’, and ‘management and leadership’, as ‘adequate’. Quality of ‘environment’ was rated as ‘good’.

Among the requirements given to the nursery in the report was that staff have training opportunities linked to individual children’s support needs, including child development, Curriculum For Excellence, pre-birth to three, and leadership training courses as appropriate. The nursery was given six months to meet this requirement.

The report recommended that personal plans and planning for children’s learning and development should include information that is meaningful, reflective of needs and have planned next steps to achieve.

It also recommended the consideration of resources such as double/triple buggies for staff in the baby room to allow them to take children out in the local community. Ways to encourage exploration, imagination and physical development for younger children to access outdoors was also recommended.

Other areas for recommendation included: a review of the changing area for the baby room to ensure it is clean, pleasant and safe for children and staff to use, and monitoring and assessing the impact of having a peripatetic manager.

The report concluded: “We are confident that the setting has the capacity to continue to improve and so we will make no more visits in connection with this inspection. North Ayrshire Council will inform parents/carers about the setting’s progress as part of its arrangements for reporting on the quality of its settings.

“A notification from the Care Inspectorate will be sent to the Provider to complete an action plan.”