When choosing nursery do you look at Ofsted or go with gut feeling?

[bgt]

We chose a nursery 6 months ago but the nursery has been recently inspected and the report wasnt that great. Not sure what to do now?

i do both. it really depends on how happy you are with it, i guess your dc hasn't started there yet? You could ask for a trial week maybe? but i would take it into consideration. If yuor dc were there and happy i wouldn't take him/her out tho.

What is not great about the report? Things that could well be ongoing, or things that could have been a one-off on the day? Things that concern you, or not? The nursery that DD went to had very good reports, but one criticism was that the toddlers didn't have free access to the boxes of toys to choose what they wanted to play with - I thought that was very sensible actually, having seen the chaos DD caused at home, by herself, getting toys out and forgetting them after five minutes!

A key thing to do is to talk to the nursery about what they plan to do as a result of the report. They should get plans in place pretty quickly to address the shortcomings.

I looked at the reports but then ended up getting heeby-geeby feelings at the "good" place and much warmer friendlier feelings at the "satisfactory" place so went with my gut and I think it was the right choice. Maybe go back and visit again or have chat with the head nurse about your concerns? It seems like ofsted can be pretty random at times.

I think you need to read the report and work out whether the things they slipped up on matter to you. Some of the things ofsted reports on are (imho) not that important - and other aspects I think I am a better judge on.

But there are some things that are non-negotiable and I'd be concerned if they failed on one of those areas. At the end of the day though I'd probably go for a great gut feeling/ ofsted satisfactory over a mediocre gut/ ofsted great, as long as they had the basics right. Maybe they were spending more time interacting with kids rather than ticking boxes!

I did both, and was fortunate (and relieved)that the nursery that I was comfortable with rated 'Outstanding' in all areas. I have looked at the Ofsted reports when looking at Primary schools too though, and definitely used them in my decision.

Both, but gut feeling first.

My son has been to three nurseries - two 'Good', one 'Outstanding'. The outstanding one was the only one we had problems with. Should have listened to my gut, as on first impressions I thought the atmosphere seemed a bit cold and all about appearances - and I turned out to be right.