A nursery has been told to improve its standards by the education watchdog Ofsted after it received an allegation a child was physically and verbally harmed by a staff member.

Purple Panda Nursery, in Norbury Crescent, received a “Requires Improvement” rating from inspectors at the end of last year.

Ofsted received a complaint on October 10, 19 and 23, that a member of staff allegedly verbally and physically harmed a child.

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The nursery did not then inform the education watchdog that it launched its own internal investigation into the allegation – which is part of safeguarding policy procedures.

Director of the nursery Anthony Bailey admitted he was wrong not to inform Ofsted of his internal enquiries.

But the internal investigation did find that no child received physical or verbal harm by a staff member, Mr Bailey said.

Both the schools’ watchdog inspectors and Mr Bailey said they could not go into details about the allegation – citing confidentially reasons.

After receiving the information, Ofsted carried out a full inspection on the nursery, which was at the time rated “Good”, and found that standards had fallen.

Despite the fall in standards since the last full inspection on January 10, 2014, inspectors said they were satisfied with improvements to safeguarding.

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The report, published on December 13, reads: “The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Staff have developed a secure knowledge and understanding of safeguarding children and know what to do if they have a concern about a child.

“Staff attend an extensive range of training opportunities.

“However, training that does take place is not always consistently embedded in daily practise.

“Due to recent changes in staffing arrangements the monitoring of planning and assessment has lapsed - as has the supervision of staff.”

Mr Bailey is appealing Ofsted’s decision to label all areas of its inspection on the nursery as “Requires Improvement.”

He said: “I don’t agree, at all, with the results of the inspection – and parents agree with me.

"There has been a large turnover of staff here recently and that is out of my control.

“Children leave here being able to read, and I feel improvements have actually been made.

"I’m expecting to hear back from Ofsted about the appeal in Feburary – so we’ll have to wait and see.”

On the allegations that a child was verbally and physically abused by a member of staff, Mr Bailey said: “Our investigation found that there was no verbal or physical assault.

“We should have contacted inspectors at Ofsted, we were wrong not to do so. It was a mistake that won’t happen again. We held our hands up and admitted it.”

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