PARENTS have rallied to the defence of Bolton College's nursery — after the government's education watchdog found it was inadequate.

Ofsted has given Bolton College's early years and pre-school centre a grade four rating stating it "does not meet legal requirements for early years settings".

All areas of the nursery — how it meets the needs of the range of children who attend; how it contributes to the well being of youngsters and the effectiveness of the leadership and management — were marked as inadequate.

Inspectors said that safeguarding practices are not "fully understood by staff", and some children "lack enthusiasm for learning , wandering aimlessly around the setting with managers not having effective systems in place to "ensure that all children are making good progress".

Ofsted said that not completing assessments for every two-year-old child was a breach of legal requirement and that the failure to notify it of two new managers with in the past 12 months was an offence.

A welfare requirements notice has now been issued to the nursery to address the concerns raised.

But inspectors found that the new nursery manager has identified what action is needed.

They reported: "Although only in post for five week, she has made a good start in taking steps to address the weaknesses at the setting."

Inspectors added that the nursery had "positive relationships with parents".

College principal Marie Gilluley said: “We acknowledge the findings of the report and are inevitably disappointed with the results. They were the consequence of unfortunate circumstances on the day and were not representative of our everyday standard of childcare provision.

“An immediate action plan has been implemented and additional staff training has taken place with immediate effect, and this was demonstrated during the follow-up spot-check visit, with the inspector acknowledging that many of the issues have already been addressed.

“It is important to reinforce that at no point were any children at risk or in danger, and we look forward to receiving a further visit from Ofsted during which we can fully showcase our good practice.”

Parent Rachel Healey added: “I’m very happy with the college’s childcare provision; there have never been any problems and all of the staff are very accommodating. My son has received consistently excellent care and he really enjoys his time there.

“The continuity of the staff has also been great — my eldest daughter previously attended the nursery and there were never any issues.”

Parent Lisa Richards said: “The health visitor recently carried out a two-year check and is very impressed with my daughter’s development. She said that she is very advanced for her age, and the college nursery staff have played a large part in that."