A nursery has been criticised for not displaying enough ethnic posters and teaching children about different cultures
A nursery has been stripped off its Ofsted outstanding grade for failing to teach three yers olds about ethnic diversity; Ofsted criticised the Town and County Kiddies Nursery for not displaying enough pictures of black and Asian people.
A report stated: “Staff do not provide enough opportunities for children to develop a strong sense of belonging at the nursery and to learn about people who are different to themselves.”
Parents have made strong comments about this decision;
“Just because the majority of the kids are white shouldn’t be used as a stick to beat the nursery with.
“The nursery does an excellent job, the atmosphere is inclusive and the staff break their backs to help every kid.
“This Ofsted report is a kick in the face for them and is yet another example of politically correct nonsense.”
Another dad added: “One word can be used to describe that report – wrong.
“What planet do these Ofsted inspectors live on? How can you teach two or three-year-olds about racism?
“Kids that young treat each other the same whatever their skin colour. They just see kids as kids and that’s as it should be.”
The owner of the nursery Louise Davies expressed her concerns over the Ofsted rating system.
She said: “There are things they’d like us to do over and above – children having understanding of other people and different cultures.
“It comes with living in the community where there isn’t a great deal of cultural and ethnic diversity.
“They’re not seeing that on a day to day basis, unlike nurseries in London where they do have it on a day to day basis.
“One of the things the inspectors said was that we needed to put more pictures of people from ethnic cultures on the walls of the nursery.”
Last year Ofsted changed the rules on grading schools and nurseries and now there are more criteria to meet to gain an outstanding grade.
Ms Davies added: “There’s a real strong focus on the new criteria that the whole workforce needs to be delivering exceptional practice. It’s unrealistic.
“It’s an ideological view, not commercially viable. We can’t operate a team that’s without exception.
The report has since been temporarily withdrawn while the Ofsted regional director reviews the case.