Nursery in Whiteley to 'robustly challenge' Ofsted following 'shocking' inadequate rating

Kiddi Caru Nursery, located in Gull Coppice, has recently received an inadequate Ofsted following an inspection which took place on March 12, 2024. The nursery was previously rated as a good nursery following the inspection in 2018 and the most recent outcome has left the staff feeling ‘shocked’ resulting in a formal complaint being lodged.

The Ofsted report said: ‘There is poor oversight of the nursery from senior leaders in the organisation. Significant weakness in safeguarding policies and procedures do not promote children's welfare. Staff, including those who are designated safeguarding leads, have a poor knowledge of safeguarding, including how to escalate concerns and manage allegations about staff.

“Those who make up the management team are new to their positions and receive ineffective support to fulfil their roles and responsibilities. Staff supervisions are poor. Consequently key information about children is not shared, to enable staff to have a complete picture of children's needs. Furthermore, staff practice is not suitably monitored or supported. Teaching is weak.”

The nursery is part of the Grandir UK chain and it is formed of a number of education settings including Kiddi Caru Nursery in Fareham. A spokesperson for Grandir UK said: “Our Whiteley nursery has been long established and is a popular, well-regarded, and effective early years educational centre. We were looking forward to working with the Ofsted inspectorate to demonstrate and evidence the fantastic offering our dedicated team provides there.

“However, we were shocked to receive a judgement of Inadequate for the setting, and we have already raised a formal complaint with Ofsted regarding the conduct of their inspectors, the quality of the inspection and their impartiality during the process.

We wish to make clear that the leaders of the organisation, managers and staff strongly reject the Ofsted judgement, and associated report. As a business, we own and operate over 80 nurseries and have experienced teams working to continuously enhance the quality of the offering we provide to our parents and children in every single setting. We understand what great quality childcare and early years education is and will always welcome working with Ofsted in a fair, open, and supportive way to understand how our nurseries are performing and how best to improve the quality of their offering.”

On April 3, Ofsted conducted a regulatory visit to check that improvements were being made to the safeguarding measures. The report from the regulatory visit said: “We found that the provider has suitable oversight of the nursery. Leaders had provided coaching and training for staff to improve their personal effectiveness. Staff demonstrated their knowledge and understanding of child protection procedures. We observed that staff understood children's care needs and had good relationships with children and their families. We are satisfied the provider has met the safeguarding and welfare actions raised. The provider is still registered with Ofsted.”

Nevertheless, the nursery is continuing with its formal complaint against the governing body following on from the inadequate report. The spokesperson added: “We will continue to robustly challenge the grading of inadequate at our Whiteley Nursery, but in the meantime our focus, as always, is to prioritise the care, education, and wellbeing of our children, their families, and our staff there.

“Following this shocking result, we have supported parents with any concerns they may have and have an open-door policy for our families to ask any questions they wish. We have been humbled by the overwhelming support from parents towards our dedicated staff team at Whiteley.”

When an education setting makes a complaint about Ofsted, the body will review the information and they will then decide what will happen next.

For more information about the Ofsted report, click here.