A nursery school judged ‘outstanding’ by Government inspectors has been praised for using modern technology to keep parents up to speed with the children’s progress.

Anglia Sunshine Nurseries in Sudbury, which looks after 89 early years children and employs 23 childcare staff, has just received its second glowing report from Ofsted, achieving an ‘outstanding’ rating across the board in all categories.

The Government has recently introduced new regulations that have tightened inspection criteria, but education inspector Lynn Hughes could find nothing but praise for the nursery, which is on Chilton Industrial Estate.

In her report, published on Saturday, she noted that the quality of teaching was “exemplary”, and that the “dynamic” practitioners demonstrated an excellent understanding of how children learn.

She described the nursery’s management as “inspiring” and highlighted the strong partnerships that exist between the nursery, parents, schools, other early years settings which children attend and other professionals. She also picked up on the use of new technology to monitor children’s progress.

She said: “Children’s development is recorded through an on-line computer system which builds a picture of the children’s nursery life. Parents are able to feed into this system by viewing observations of their children and inputting comments about events and progress that occurs at home.”

According to deputy manager Rachel Lawrence, the nursery is the first in the area to use the technology and have an Ofsted report on its outcome.

She told the EADT: “We have tablets to record the kids’ learning plans on and the inspector said they were highly effective. We take pictures and video of activities which parents can access immediately.

“Everything in the report was really positive which is down to the hard work of staff and the fact that we have strong links with the parents who provide us with lots of information to support their children’s learning.”

To celebrate the glowing report, staff, parents and children took a trip to the cinema together.