THE owner of a Northwich nursery says an Ofsted inspection which marked down the facility had occurred because of a ‘legal technicality’.

It follows the inspection, which was published earlier this month, which determined that the Riverbank Day Nursery, Watling Street, required improvement.

The nursery has 50 children, who are aged between two and four.

In its report, Ofsted questioned the quality of the leadership and management, quality of teaching, learning and assessment, personal development, behaviour and welfare and outcomes for the children, which were all assessed as requiring improvement.

The inspector said the nursery had failed to provide Ofsted with the necessary information to change the nursery’s registration, which was a breach of the requirements.

However, due to the consistency of the staff team children were not at risk of harm.

It said that the staff had a good understanding of child development and planned learning experiences, which related to children’s interests.

However, the planned activities did not provide enough challenge to extend what children already knew to help them make better progress.

While the report made no specific reference to shortcomings in relation to personal development, behaviour and welfare, it picked up on outcomes, suggesting that children did not make good enough progress from their starting points.

A statement from Thomas Green, the son of the owner Amanda Green, said: “The nursery was graded as ‘requires improvement’ on a legal technicality, following the death of one of the owners.

“We were required to change its registration, this we have attempted to do more than once.

“Ofsted’s system cancelled the request without informing us, so the first we heard of it was when we were routinely inspected.

“Another application was submitted immediately.

“The inspection report states that this has had no detrimental effect on the children in our care.

“We therefore expect Ofsted will return soon following the repeated application submission and that the report will be reviewed to show that the nursery continues to provide a high quality service.”