Nursery World - Playgroups impress Ofsted for education

Playgroups and pre-schools in England have the most improved daycare provision of any Government-funded care provider in the past year, an Ofsted report has found. The report, Nursery education: Quality of provision for three-and four-year-olds 2000-01, published last week, looked at nursery settings in the private, voluntary and independent sectors which are subject to Section 122 inspections. It said 86 per cent of all providers were judged to be good overall, with 13 per cent satisfactory overall and less than 0.5 per cent unsatisfactory.

The report, Nursery education: Quality of provision for three-and four-year-olds 2000-01, published last week, looked at nursery settings in the private, voluntary and independent sectors which are subject to Section 122 inspections. It said 86 per cent of all providers were judged to be good overall, with 13 per cent satisfactory overall and less than 0.5 per cent unsatisfactory.

But the report found the 'greatest improvements' had been made by playgroups, with 82 per cent now classed as being good providers compared with 61 per cent in the year 1999-2000.

The report said, 'This is a strong indicator that the (voluntary) sector has responded to inspections and implemented strategies to improve the quality of the provision.' It also noted that standards in private nursery schools and local authority nurseries 'remain consistently high', with more than 90 per cent of providers 'judged to be making good overall provision'.

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