'Warm and welcoming' staff praised at good Mansfield Woodhouse nursery

Safe Haven Day Nursery has been rated ‘good’ in a newly published report by education watchdog Ofsted, with inspectors singling out its “warm and welcoming” staff for praise.

Safe Haven, on High Street, Mansfield Woodhouse, has 72 places for children aged up to four years and employs 20 members of childcare staff.

And following the one-day inspection in December it has been rated good in all categories: education quality; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management.

The report says: “Children arrive at the nursery with their parents and are keen to enter. Staff are warm and welcoming. They give children reassurance, if needed, and develop positive relationships with children and their families. This supports children to be happy and confident.”

It says: “Staff and managers understand child development and how children learn. Children are supported by staff to gain skills towards becoming independent. Children are encouraged by staff to have their own ideas.”

The report also said how parents are “happy with the setting”, commenting on how “accommodating and supportive staff are with their family circumstances” and the “positive communication they receive from the nursery, which helps them to know their child's next steps in learning”.

To further improve the nursery was urged to: support staff to be consistent in how they respond to all children's attempts to communicate, to develop all children's communication skills further; and to support staff to be consistent with their behaviour expectations, to ensure children understand how they are expected to behave.

To read the report in full, see reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/16/253270