A WEST Somerset nursery has been branded inadequate by Government inspectors after a child walked off the premises. But Cheeky Cherubs in Minehead, where the incident happened at the end of July, told the Free Press this week it was appealing the inspection decision. And the mother of the four-year-old boy involved has defended the nursery's handling of the incident and said she will be backing the appeal. The nursery and pre-school, based at Alcombe Children's Centre since 2006 and operated from a base in Minehead before that, notified Ofsted as soon as the incident happened. That resulted in a visit a week later from inspector Elaine Douglas, whose report was posted on the Ofsted website last Wednesday. In a statement, nursery owner Jo Buck said the incident was an isolated one and involved a child who left the nursery premises whilst a workman was removing his tools. "At no time was the child out of sight of an adult and proper procedures were followed," she said. "Cheeky Cherubs are currently appealing the decision and the process is ongoing due to many factual inaccuracies in the (Ofsted) report. "Parents have been kept fully informed and staff continue to provide high quality child care provision." Gemma North, the mother of the boy, told the Free Press she had no concerns about her child's safety. "The nursery staff were on the phone to me while it was happening and I was kept fully informed the whole time. "My son's got a bit of a passion for tools - his father is a carpenter - and he just followed the workman. "But he only got just outside the nursery premises and he was being followed by a member of staff. "The staff member decided not to chase him in case he thought it was a game and started running. "It was just an unfortunate incident that has been blown out of all proportion and I think the nursery has been treated very harshly and unfairly. "The rest of the report makes it clear that it is a good nursery. "My son has just started school but I still have two children at Cheeky Cherubs and I have every confidence in the nursery's ability to keep them safe." Ofsted graded the nursery as good for how well its early years provision met the needs of the 117 children on its roll. But it received the lowest rating - inadequate - for the contribution of its early years provision to the well-being of children and for the effectiveness of its leadership and management of early years provision. Inspector Elaine Douglas concluded that the management had failed to carry out sufficiently robust risk assessments to keep children from leaving the premises unsupervised while workmen were present. She also said staff did not have a thorough enough knowledge of the risk assessments to ensure sufficient ratios to keep children safe while they were using the garden area. And she said staff were not sufficiently vigilant in managing children's movements between the indoor and outdoor environments to keep children safe at all times. In her report Ms Douglas said the nursery failed to take all necessary steps to safeguard children's welfare, which compromised their well-being. "They did not give sufficient thought to the risk to children when a workman was using the garden side gate." Ms Douglas said staff from the pre-school also failed to notice they had left two children in the garden when they went in for story time. "Only one member of staff was in the babies' garden and although she could see the children, she was unable to prevent one of them from leaving the premises. "As a result, these weaknesses put a child at risk. "Precautions to prevent a reoccurrence of such an event are inadequate, therefore children's well-being is still being compromised." However, Ms Douglas accepted that all staff attended safeguarding training and had a secure knowledge of procedures to follow should they have a concern that a child was at risk. In relation to the incident, she said her inspection had found that although the boy had been seen to leave by a member of staff, it was a member of the children's centre staff who brought him back, not nursery staff. "The manager had not carried out sufficiently robust risk assessments to keep children safe at all times or updated them when the need arose," said Ms Douglas. "This is a breach of safeguarding and welfare requirement and puts children at risk." Ms Douglas said the nursery had relied on a workman keeping the gate closed and although the gate led to another garden, it had not considered the risks of a child being able to trigger an automatic door to the exit. And although the nursery's own risk assessments stated that when workmen were present there had to be a minimum of two staff in the garden at all times, only one member of staff was in the garden at the time of the incident. "This inspection highlights insufficient consideration to the seriousness of the incident," said Ms Douglas. "The management failed to investigate the incident thoroughly but did hold a meeting with staff and put some measures in place to secure the premises. "They now have a sign on the gate for it to be kept closed. However, this is still prone to human error, although the automatic door is now kept locked to prevent children exiting through the children's centre. "Risks of other exit routes have not been assessed." However, the report concluded that the management had a good understanding of their responsibilities in promoting children's learning and development and that there were no breaches of the learning and development requirements. Ms Douglas said that all children, including those with special educational needs, made good progress. Staff were said to organise the learning environment well to enable children to make independent choices, children had strong relationships with staff, while staff had strong partnerships with parents and other agencies. The report outlines a number of improvements that need to be made: l To ensure risk assessments were regularly reviewed to identify the action needed to minimise or manage any risks, with particular regard for using the garden when workmen were present. l To ensure staff were knowledgeable about risk assessments and followed additional safety procedures with regard to ratios in the garden to keep children safe. To meet the requirements of the Childcare Register, the nursery has also been told to undertake a risk assessment immediately. And in a separate recommendation, it has been told to improve staff knowledge of how to support children's mathematical development.