Ashbourne Day Nursery at Padgate

Ashbourne Day Nursery at Padgate has made significant improvements since the previous 'Requires Improvement' rating in June 2024, achieving a 'Good' overall effectiveness grade across all four legacy framework areas. The nursery demonstrates strong leadership and swift action on improvement priorities, with particular strengths in behaviour management, personal development, and SEND support. The report uses the pre-November 2025 four-area framework (Quality of Education, Behaviour & Attitudes, Personal Development, Leadership & Management), which has been mapped to the new seven-area structure: Safeguarding (Met), Inclusion (Strong Standard, 82), Curriculum and Teaching (Expected Standard, 72), Achievement (Expected Standard, 72), Behaviour/Attitudes/Routines (Strong Standard, 82), Welfare/Well-being (Strong Standard, 82), and Leadership/Governance (Strong Standard, 82). Two specific curriculum gaps have been identified: mathematics lacks depth in exploring key concepts (shape, colour, number recognition), and communication/language activities sometimes suffer from excessive background noise during adult-led sessions with younger children.