Behind the Inspection Rating: Children thrive on animal farm

For parents, High Bank Nursery's selling points are clear. The first is its handy location near Darlington just off the A1, which attracts families from as far afield as Northallerton, 20-odd miles south of it.

Another attention grabber is the nursery's home: a renovated barn on a working livestock farm. As you might expect that means plenty of opportunities for animal encounters. "We have free-range chickens and the children collect eggs and feed them. At lambing time the children get to pick names for the lambs, and when the animals are in the field, they can go to the fence to see them," says manager Jennifer Thompson.

The farm connection and the nursery's large enclosed outdoor space are also popular with parents. "Because a lot of our children come from the local villages and farming communities, the parents are outdoor people anyway, so the fact that there's such a good outdoor provision for the children is a draw," says Thompson.

The nursery has another selling point: a good rating from Ofsted, which described it as a nursery of happy children who enjoy their time there. The inspectorate also commended how it gets parents involved.

"We have parents who come in and might do a baking or reading session with the children," says Thompson. "We've got parents who are teachers, nurses, firemen, doctors and dentists, and we invite them in to talk to the pre-school children about what they do. We invite parents in rather than go to outside agencies because that way parents are involved in what is going on in the setting too, even if their own children are not in those groups."

Parents also help the nursery with its efforts to cater for children for whom English is an additional language. Staff swot up on key phrases for the languages it encounters, which encompass Chinese, French, Hebrew and Russian. But they also encourage the participation of parents by getting them in to speak to the children in other languages.

In one recent example, the nursery invited in the mum of a boy who was not keen to read a story to all the children in his home language. "The boy was more interested in the language then because the other children were taking part as well," says Thompson.

The children at High Bank also get exposed to other languages through the nursery's weekly 45-minute French sessions. "The company that does it contacted us and asked if we thought the parents would be interested," says Thompson. "It's all play-based - they do it all through songs, rhyme, stories and a little bit of drama. We've been doing it for about six years. The parents really like it and the children love it as well - for them it's just another game."

While its children come from a wide surrounding area, High Bank won praise from Ofsted for its efforts to prepare children for school. "We invite teachers from local schools to come in and do a little session with the children where they will talk to them about school and the differences between school and nursery," says Thompson. "We also take the children into local schools for 'play and stay' sessions where they join up with the reception class. It's a big transition going to school, especially for children who start nursery as babies as they are with us for four years."

HELPFUL HINTS

• Support reflective practice. High Bank Nursery has a dedicated member of staff offering supervision and training to the nursery's workers. "She does regular supervision meetings with the staff individually where the staff can talk through any issues they've got relating to their practice and training needs and she can discuss with them how to move forward," says High Bank's manager Jennifer Thompson. "Reflection is an ongoing thing that staff constantly do in their work but in these sessions they've got the time to talk about things."
• Keep the circle turning. The key to a good nursery is a circle of happiness, says Thompson: "If we've got happy children, we've got happy parents. If parents are happy, the managers are happy so staff are happy and then so are the children. It's a circle and the key thing is that you keep that going. We have to make sure we are offering the children the best opportunities we can on an individual basis. They are all different, they've all got their own little personalities and quirks, and we've got to cater for those individual needs."

FACT FILE

• Name: High Bank Nursery
• Location: Stapleton, County Durham
• Description: First registered in 2003, High Bank Nursery is a private nursery located on a working livestock farm that has the same owners as the nursery. It works out of five rooms on a renovated farm building with a secure enclosed outdoor play area. The setting caters for children aged from six weeks to five years old and has 20 members of staff. The nursery is open each weekday from 7.30am to 6pm for 51 weeks a year.
• Number of children: 65 places and 123 children on roll
• Ofsted inspection reference number: EY259723