Rowhedge Under Five’s Pre-School 'requires improvement'

Rowhedge Under Five’s Pre-School, based at the village hall, in Rectory Road, Rowhedge, has been rated as requires improvement from Ofsted following an inspection in October.

The report, published this month, found the pre-school has been graded as requires improvement in the quality of education, behaviour and attitudes, personal development and leadership and management.

This follows on from its last inspection published in June where it was rated inadequate, and it said: "Children do not receive enough support to recognise how to interact positively with others”.

Pre-school - an illustrative image of a child at a pre-school (Image: Pexels)

According to inspector Lynn Hartigan, children happily arrive at the preschool and leave their parents with ease.

The education programme helps the children “be kind, believe themselves, and be passionate learners”.

However, there are “some weaknesses in children’s learning” as the quality of teaching is variable and not yet “consistently good”.

Yet Ofsted has noted how “significant changes have had a positive impact on outcomes for children” and that a new management team is at the pre-school since the last inspection took place.

Rowhedge Under Five’s Pre-School is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 3pm during school term time.

Jodie Daniel is the pre-school manager of the provision, who now runs the nursery alongside deputy manager Claire Derring.

The pair say they are not “far away from a good” grading in such a short amount of time.

Jodie said: "In normal circumstances, a setting, the staff, and the parents may be disappointed to have received a new grading of requires improvement, but for our setting these have not been normal circumstances.

“Our new management team and committee had only been in place for six short weeks before the inspector arrived in October, and we are extremely pleased to have received this next grading up at this time.

“The new grading reflects very realistically all the work and achievements that have been developing so far, and all the goals we are aiming to secure as part of our action plans over the next year.

“The report is extremely positive.

“The inspector was very complimentary and positive about all the changes that have been made and planned, it was clear we have good aims and that we’re moving in the right direction from the last report in May.”