A children’s nursery has been found ‘not to be safe’ following an inspection.

Problems identified included a lack of training, cleanliness, and management.

Puddleducks, on Raphael Road in Douglas, underwent an annual assessment by the government last month along with other nurseries around the island.

The inspectors establish whether the nursery is safe, caring, effective, responsive and well led.

The Department of Health and Social Care’s Registration and Inspection Team said in its Annual Inspection Report for 2022-23 that Puddleducks, which has around 60 children on its register, had failed in all areas of the assessment.

Identified areas for needed improvement were that the premises and equipment needed cleaning, the condition of some resources available to the children were observed in a poor state of repair and didn’t reflect cultural diversity or inclusivity, and staff were not being supported to meet the children’s individual needs.

Also, the manager and staff didn’t demonstrate an understanding of managing children’s behaviour. There was, according to the report, ‘no consistent approach’ amongst the team or strategies in place to promote and support positive behaviour.

Staff were not keeping the children engaged, which led to many children becoming fidgety and restless which affected their behaviour.

The children’s understanding of right and wrong was not being developed as there were no clear boundaries in place. Inspectors observed staff not explaining to children that the behaviour they were displaying wasn’t acceptable and when those children were behaving well, staff were not praising them.

Inspectors have asked for more training to be completed as three members of staff hadn’t done their safeguarding training.

Fire awareness and first aid training was also not up to date.

As well as this, records used for the safe management of the service were not always legible or accurate.

The Department of Health and Social Care said that despite this it’s not at the stage of using its regulatory powers to deregister the service.

Chair of the quality and safety committee Joney Faragher said the nursery would have a ‘window of opportunity’ to improve these issues.

She told Manx Radio: ‘The department has recently transitioned to a new and more robust regulatory methodology and this inspection is an excellent example of how this will bring high standards in all areas, including safeguarding, staffing and procedures.

‘In terms of what comes next it is important that service providers know that this process can be a learning one and Puddleducks is now given a window of opportunity to improve upon the issues discussed with staff during the inspection.

‘In the event of genuine safety concerns for children in a nursery setting, the department can and will use its regulatory powers to de-register a service. That is not the point we are at.’