A PRE-SCHOOL nursery which received two poor inspection results in the space of five months is set to close before the end of the year.

Go Bananas Pre-School, which has 20 children on its register, received the lowest possible rating from the education inspectorate when it was first inspected in May earlier this year, and was still found to be requiring improvement following another inspection in October.

Following the May inspection, officials published a report stating the safety of children was being compromised because the pre-school was not carrying out the requisite checks to ensure staff were suitable to work with children.

Though DBS checks had been put in place, recruitment standards were still regarded as having fallen short, with information of applicants not having been fully verified.

Following the October inspection, problems have remained at Go Bananas Pre-School in Colchester with it deemed to require improvement in all metrics.

Although ratings given for the personal development of staff and the quality of the leadership team improved from inadequate to requires improvement, ratings for the quality of education and behaviour of attitudes of youngsters fell from good to requires improvement.

The latest Ofsted report found the curriculum lacked ambition and opportunities were limited for youngsters at the pre-school.

Although children were described as settled and happy, issues with staffing have persisted, with inspectors saying regular supervision meetings for staff are yet to be implemented.

Overall, however, safeguarding has been judged to have improved.

But the Go Bananas director, Frankie Bailey, said the closure of the pre-school was a business decision which was made before the second inspection took place.

She said: “The publication of this report does coincide with our own independent hard business decision to close the pre-school at the end of December, which was made several weeks ago.

“The viability of running a pre-school, as a small family run business, whilst also weathering the nationwide early years recruitment shortage, financial climate and Covid has been difficult.

“We are now focussing on continuing to ensure our children have the best December possible with lots of exciting plans ahead.”