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Black Country pre-school enjoys another 'outstanding' inspection result

A Black Country church-led school is celebrating after achieving an outstanding Ofsted inspection across all areas.

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The youngsters at St Michael's celebrate the outstanding result

The inspector praised the St Michael’s Pre-School in Stourbridge for its inspirational learning environment where children make rapid progress in their development in the inspection report, the first one held since an outstanding inspection in 2017.

In the report, it also praised the combination of focused learning time and child-initiated learning and how staff identified teaching moments to help feel specific learning targets into children's play.

The leaders were praised for being successful in ensuring staff develop their knowledge and skills continuously and identifying development points with staff and review the impact of any training which has been completed.

Leaders create improvement plans which are acted on and are committed to increasing their own knowledge and skills.

Manager Sally Collins said the pre-school was pleased that its provision continues to be judged as outstanding and said it was a team effort.

She said: "We were particularly delighted with the feedback that our ‘staff are excellent role models to children and support them to resolve conflict calmly and swiftly’ and ‘children use manners without prompting and show care towards others’."

The pre-school sits under the umbrella of St Michael and All Angels Church and meets in the hall next door and said Ms Collins said the team was proud of the Christian ethos, including the reading of bible stories and visits to the church.

She said: “The love of Jesus is in everything we do and, as a team, we pray each morning before the pre-school opens and regularly ask parents if there’s anything they’d like us to pray for.

"It’s really important to us that we support the families as well as educating and caring for the children.

"We give out vouchers to those who are struggling, and parents and carers are always welcome to pop in for a chat.

"We really don’t want people to feel like they’re on their own.

“We are a very inclusive setting which is there for everyone and it’s great that the Ofsted inspector recognised that. We are lucky that we never have to advertise – we’re always full just through word of mouth!

"Things are quite tough at the moment with the funding crisis in early years’ care and we always appreciate any support the wider church can give us with additional resources for the children.

"This amazing Ofsted report is a real reflection on the dedication of our staff, but we are also very grateful for all those who support us.”