Non-Maintained Nursery Settings – Adroddiad Blynyddol | Annual Report
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Non-Maintained Nursery Settings

Early Insights 2024-2025

Teaching and learning

Practitioners increasingly embraced the ethos of the Curriculum for funded non-maintained nursery settings to provide learning areas and activities that excited and interested children, ensuring that most made good progress. While many settings enrich experiences through community engagement and support Welsh language acquisition effectively, a few still face challenges in assessment practices, cultural diversity, and consistent Welsh language use.

What’s going well

  • Most children make effective progress in developing their skills, knowledge and understanding.
  • Practitioners increasingly embrace the ethos of the Curriculum for funded non-maintained nursery settings.
  • In the strongest examples, practitioners provide learning areas and activities that excite and interest children, ensuring authentic and purposeful experiences both indoors and outdoors.
  • In many English-medium settings, practitioners effectively support Welsh language acquisition.
  • In most Welsh-medium settings, practitioners plan together effectively to immerse children in the Welsh language and constantly expand children’s vocabulary and understanding of the language.
  • Many practitioners enrich children’s experiences when exploring their locality, using these visits to develop children’s knowledge of the wider world, offering meaningful opportunities for them to develop a sense of awe and wonder.

What needs to improve

  • In a few settings, practitioners’ Welsh language skills are underdeveloped, and the Welsh language is used inconsistently during sessions.
  • In a few settings, the use of assessments and observations to challenge and support children is still at an early stage of development.
  • In a very few settings, opportunities for children to learn about the lives and beliefs of people from cultures other than their own are limited.

Well-being, care, support and guidance

Settings continue to provide strong care, support and guidance to children, which has a positive impact on their well-being.

What’s going well

  • Settings continue to provide strong care, support and guidance to children, which has a positive impact on their well-being.
  • Nearly all children form warm, trusting relationships with practitioners, who know them well and meet their needs sensitively.
  • In many settings, practitioners ensure that children play an active role in shaping their experiences by allowing them to make purposeful choices about their play and learning and to take increasing responsibility for tasks at the setting.
  • Practitioners have a sound understanding of their roles and responsibilities in keeping children safe and they promote healthy lifestyles amongst children.
  • Many settings provide thoughtfully tailored learning experiences for children with additional learning needs (ALN), supported by strong multi-agency collaboration.

What needs to improve

  • In a very few instances, settings did not always provide sufficient detail in written records of all incidents that occurred on the premises.

Leading and improving

Leaders in most settings provide strong, reflective, and collaborative leadership that prioritises children’s well-being and development successfully. In a few settings, there was a lack of focus on key development areas and appraisal processes were underdeveloped.

What’s going well

  • Most leaders build strong, collaborative teams where practitioners feel valued and supported.
  • Leaders in many settings self-evaluate effectively, considering a wide range of evidence to develop clear and manageable actions that have a positive impact on children’s engagement and skill development.
  • Many leaders ensure that supervision and appraisal processes provided meaningful opportunities for practitioners to reflect on their practice and set targeted goals that help them support children’s learning.
  • Many settings forge strong partnerships with parents and carers, local schools, community organisations, and the local authority advisory service.
  • Many leaders allocate resources carefully and match their spending to improvement priorities.

What needs to improve

  • In a few settings, leaders did not always focus on the most important areas for development, or the actions that would bring about the most improvement.
  • In a very few settings, supervision and appraisal processes were not carried out formally and were not fully embedded in the settings’ practices.

Overview of recommendations from inspections

A total of 90 non-maintained nursery settings were inspected in the 2024-2025 academic year. All providers were given at least one recommendation, with a total of 186 recommendations given.

73 providers (71%) were given a recommendation relating to teaching and learning.

  • 26 providers (29%) were given a recommendation about using observations to plan children’s next steps in learning
  • 11 providers (12%) were given a recommendation about providing opportunities for children to learn about different cultures or diversity within society
  • 7 providers (8%) were given a recommendation about providing or improving opportunities for children to develop their skills

10 providers (12%) were given a recommendation related to well-being, care, support and guidance.

  • These recommendations all focused on various aspects of well-being, care, support and guidance and involved issues such as providing sufficient detail in written records, recording staff attendance accurately and, holding and recording fire drills regularly

51 providers (57%) were given a recommendation related to leadership and management.

  • 16 providers (18%) were given a recommendation about staff development, including formalising or improving appraisal and supervision processes

  • 13 providers (14%) were given a recommendation relating to self-evaluation, including strengthening procedures

  • 7 providers (8%) were recommended to address areas of non-compliance identified in the inspection

  • 6 providers (7%) were given a recommendation about continuing their good practice

Effective practice identified during inspection

Cylch Meithrin Y Drenewydd

Discover how Cylch Meithrin Y Drenewydd use strong community links to impact positively on pupils’ experiences, progress and well-being: Cylch Meithrin Y Drenewydd

Cylch Meithrin Llanrhaeadr Ym Mochnant

Read about how leaders at Cylch Meithrin Llanrhaeadr Ym Mochnant have established thorough and robust self evaluation procedures which have led to a culture of continuous improvement: Cylch Meithrin Llanrhaeadr Ym Mochnant