Ofsted? No problem! – The Secret Inspection Success Behind Asquith’s Outstanding Ratings
With the nursery provider celebrating an outstanding 2016 and an impressive start to 2017, Olivia Hollick explains the consistent excellence come inspection day
In 2016, Asquith Day Nurseries & Pre-Schools was awarded 10 ’outstanding’ Ofsted grades
This run of success has continued into 2017, as a further five nurseries have achieved an ‘outstanding’ so far this year. As a result, out of 93 Asquith nurseries across England, 38 can now lay claim to Ofsted’s top rating, equating to 41% of the Asquith group.
Outstanding training
High-quality training has played a key part in Asquith’s success. The group provides a variety of training modules and programmes from our support office in Chesham, the UK’s largest childcare training facility. Colleagues benefit from a team of dedicated regional training and development managers, who specialise in classroom delivery. This means that trainers are able to deliver a consistent message to a wide group of staff, allowing knowledge to be disseminated equally. The opportunity for staff to network and share further ideas amongst themselves is also invaluable to achieving widespread success across the group.
Developing staff
Over the past 18 months, a great deal of emphasis has been placed on ‘growing our own’ staff at all levels. Colleagues can see a clear career journey in the company and share a passion to succeed, from apprenticeships through to internal talent development and the promotion of staff into management positions.
Continuity is also key – a stable staff team who feel supported by their nursery manager and the wider company have a positive effect on children’s wellbeing. Parents also feel at ease as they and their child build relationships with the staff. This is recognised in feedback from Ofsted: “All children are exceedingly happy, settled and secure” and “[managers] provide exceptional supervision and development opportunities for staff, which rapidly improve outcomes for children” remarked the inspectors of the Kingston Day Nursery & Pre-School and Hatch End Pre-School & Day Nursery respectively.
Joining forces
Asquith is now part of the Bright Horizons family, which has had its own share of Ofsted success. In 2016, Bright Horizons received 10 ‘outstanding’ Ofsted ratings and so far this year has achieved a further four. As the two companies continue to integrate and share best practice we expect to see this trend of Ofsted success continue. The combined group now has 87 nurseries with an ‘outstanding’ Ofsted rating.
As one company, Asquith and Bright Horizons will continue on their shared mission to provide exceptional care, education and family solutions in each nursery, every day.
Impressing the inspectors
Kirkby Day Nursery in Liverpool (pictured) is the latest Asquith setting to achieve an ‘outstanding’, building on the ‘good’ it received at its previous inspection. Ofsted praised many aspects of its team’s practice:
| • | “Leaders have an extremely ambitious vision for the future of the nursery. They continually drive to improve and maintain the achievement levels of all children.” |
| • | “Staff have an excellent knowledge of how children learn and high expectations of what each individual child can achieve.” |
| • | “Parents are extremely well supported to become engaged and involved in children’s learning.” |
| • | “Staff have an extremely sharp focus on promoting equality, exploring the diversity of the children’s experiences and helping them to learn more about the world around them.” |
| • | “All children are making excellent rates of progress from their individual starting points.” |
