CHARFIELD Pre-school has been praised by an education inspector for the service it runs in the village.

It was given an overall assessment of good by Edgar Hastings after he visited the pre-school that is based at Charfield Primary School.

Mr Hastings said the quality and standards of the early years provision was good, with the same grading level also applied to the way the pre-school met the needs of children, their well-being and the effectiveness of the leadership and management.

He said: "Children make good progress in their learning and most are achieving broadly the expected stage of development for their age because staff provide an interesting and enjoyable range of activities for them.

"The quality of teaching is good and the pre-school has a strong team of practitioners who regularly improve their knowledge and skills through further professional development."

The pre-school has been running since 1967 and currently has 45 children on roll. It is run by a voluntary management committee, with a team of five employed to care for the youngsters.

Mr Hastings said: "Staff provide well planned activities across all areas of learning that are linked to children's interests and enable them to make good progress in their learning and development.

"The very effective new assessment procedures enable staff to accurately identify the progress children make as well as the next steps they need to take in their learning.

"The pre-school has established an excellent partnership with parents through a two-way flow of information that ensures children are fully supported at home as well as in the pre-school.

"Staff use self-evaluation very well in order to identify how the provision can be improved. As a result, a programme of improvements has been identified."

The inspector also highlighted further improvements that should be made in order to get the pre-school to an outstanding level.

Pre-school manager Debra Davidson said: “We were very pleased with the inspection report. It shows we are doing what we should and that the children are benefiting, which is the important thing.”