Teaching, leadership, personal development and the tracking of children’s progress all need improvement at Littleport Community Pre-school.

Ofsted inspector Jacqueline Baker visited the pre-school, in Parsons Lane, in October and discovered it had gone from being good at the last inspection in June 2011 to requiring improvement in all areas now.

The school has until December 18 to come up with a way to plan to support and extend children’s learning and development. And to improve supervision of staff so teaching is “consistently strong and rapidly improves across the pre-school”.

Ms Baker did find that children with additional learning needs are well supported and the special educational needs coordinator is knowledgeable and enthusiastic about her role.

Staff are kind, caring and know the children well and that the children enjoy their time at pre-school. However, Ms Baker points out the manager does not check children’s overall progress “well enough to ensure they are progressing well”.

Supervision of staff is not “thorough enough and does not focus on identifying and improving weaknesses” She also found staff do not always plan activities to take account of children’s learning needs. “This means that although children are interested and engaged they are sometimes not sufficiently challenged and learning is not promoted effectively.”