Nursery praised for providing "outstanding learning opportunities"

It received an outstanding rating during its latest Ofsted inspection after being previously rated good. It follows in the footsteps of the nursery's sister site at Farley, which was awarded outstanding.

Sue Palmer, of Farley Nursery Schools, said: "We are absolutely thrilled. The great thing for us is that we have now got two nurseries that are outstanding. There isn't anywhere else in Salisbury that has that."

The nursery was rated good in all three areas - for its early years provision, the contribution of its provision to the wellbeing of children and the effectiveness of the leadership and management.

Inspector Jonathan Payne said: "Staff use their strong knowledge of how children develop, and their expertise in teaching in the outdoor environment, to provide children with outstanding learning opportunities.

"They provide simple, yet highly effective resources that children can use in a variety of different ways. Consequently, children are highly motivated and solve challenging problems."

He added that "children make excellent progress and are extremely well prepared for school" and they "thrive in the care of friendly and attentive staff".

An area of improvement was to strengthen children's understanding of numbers during indoor group times.

The report also praised the nursery's staff at the nursery.

It stated: "Staff are friendly, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about children's development, which means that children feel safe to try out their own ideas and solve problems independently.

"Staff are well-qualified and use a wide range of positive teaching strategies to engage all children in their learning.

"Staff carefully track children's progress and successfully plan for each individual child. As a result, almost all children make outstanding progress from their starting points."

Farley Nursery Schools runs three sites at Farley, Steeple Langford and Sparsholt. It hopes to gain a third outstanding rating for its nursery at Sparsholt.

Sue added: "We are working flat out to have three outstanding nursery schools.

"One of the ethoses we work to is to have happy children, if the children are happy everything else falls into place. Having happy children is what we will continue to aim for. Having three outstanding nurseries would be amazing."

On Saturday Farley Nursery Schools celebrated its ninth birthday.