Staff at an Aberdeen nursery have been praised for their “very kind and caring” interactions with youngsters.
Staff from Education Scotland wrote to families with children at Fersands Family Centre nursery and creche, in the Woodside area of the city, to report the findings of their recent inspection.
In the letter, they said there had been “very encouraging” improvements had been made at the centre since the last report in 2015.
Particular strengths were identified in numeracy and staff interaction with the children.
The letter reads: “The setting has made improvements since the original inspection. The learning environment has been improved.
“Staff were observed to be very kind and caring in their interactions with children.
“Children are making better progress in numeracy and aspects of mathematics but there is considerable scope to develop this further.
“Staff have made a good start in improving children’s learning journeys. They have begun to record individual progress in literacy and early mathematics and understand the need to refine this further so that children make better progress.”
The report adds that a new manager recruited around two months ago has “already made improvements to the setting” and that she is “well supported” by the senior practitioner.
Another inspection will be carried out next June to update parents and carers on progress.
Mark Lovie, project coordinator at the nursery, said the new management team had helped “settle down” the facility after a number of senior staff had left just prior to the previous inspection.
He said: “When we were last inspected we had lost three key staff members who we were still replacing.
“But now we have a new team in place and this report has around 26 positive comments in it.
“We are involved in things like taking the children on trips to the botanical gardens to learn about the environment, one of the few in the city to do that.
“We are in one of the more under-privileged areas of the city and for a lot of these children this is their only opportunity to do things like this.
“It’s all about giving the children the best opportunities in life.”
In a story on Fersands last week, we quoted incorrectly from a 2015 report by the Care Inspectorate instead of the most-up-to-date inspection findings. We apologise for the error.