Lilliput Lodge Day Nursery: Ofsted Appeal Jan 2008 - the story


31 January 2008:
LILLIPUT LODGE OFSTED REPORT DECLARED

"NULL AND VOID"


Our two nurseries have over 10 years had excellent Ofsted reports but as you know in December both nurseries were found inadequate in the education areas.

Staff were generally left to carry out their work as they were educated and trained to do but when examined by Ofsted they either proved they were not carrying out their tasks as they should have been, or said, despite being qualified, they were not trained. The inspectors are not there to convince staff they are able to do their work; they are only there to see the outputs.

Even in December with a brief verbal feedback all the staff now with us are working together on the Ofsted standards and showing a great deal of “grit and determination”. They all feel and express to us that they are taking command, ownership and control of their respective situation. There has been a great deal of effort to take ownership by our existing staff. No one has been told off. No one has been disciplined. But we have expressed shock and dismay that we in the past put a great deal of trust in people to look after and educate the children in their charge and so did parents. That trust was misplaced in a few. Some in fact did not care in total.

By discussion and agreement there have been a number of changes that we have all undertaken. Parents have seen in a few weeks the behaviour of the children has changed dramatically but that is a direct result of, nearly solely, the change in actions and behaviour of how staff work together and with the children. A number of procedures and policies are this week being revamped and put into practice.

I (Ray) was criticised for not monitoring more and as a result that has now changed; but despite what is read in the external press, allowing people to do their work with minimum controls has played a part in not being up to standard. This my direct and indirect responsibility but we still want staff to want to work in child care and we do not want to move to a heavy supervising culture unless forced to do so. We want it to be a pleasant environment for staff and children.

EXTERNAL PUBLICITY
We have not had the opportunity to vet or reply to letters published in the Hull Daily Mail and these letters were taken off, I understand, soon after I informed them (HDM) we were taking a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). This was on or about the 14th of January.

The Hull Daily Mail had the reports before we were able to see them as they were published on the Ofsted web site before we had seen them. As there is a 30 day appeal against Ofsted reports as well it seems strange to publish them before the nursery has seen a copy.

We will report back on the Complaints Commission reply but there are some serious allegations which we will detail with the reply when we receive it. We have only gone ahead with our complaint to the PCC after taking the best legal advice on all the statements that were on the HDM web site linked to the paper.

Ofsted have declared the inspection for Hull "null and void", but talking to staff today we still have to make improvements. BUT the report that was done in December should now be removed from their web site and is not valid now

More details will appear on our web site next week

Thank you to all the parents who have had faith with us and have offered a variety of help. To those parents who were not sure: talk to us. We still are all striving to do our best.

Will keep you in touch with other important items next week

31st January 2008

Ray van spall
Director