A DEVIZES nursery has arrived in the 21st century for recording children's achievements after being awarded a grant to help buy I-pads for staff.

St Joseph's Nursery was given a grant of £1,500 by Devizes Area Board to cover half of the £3,000 cost of buying the computer equipment. The rest of the money came from a variety of fundraising efforts which included creating and selling shopping bags with the children's self portraits on them, a quiz night, barbecue and a bake sale.

Committee secretary Emma Coles said: "St Joseph's is an Ofsted rated outstanding nursery that has been based in the heart of Devizes for 39 years. This year the committee took on a massive undertaking to raise £3000 to fund equipment to allow a new way of recording the children's early years achievements on the go, improving the quality of assessment, whilst saving hours of office time.

"We were fortunate to qualify to apply to the Devizes Area Board for half the money, but we raised the remainder."

She said that the nursery next to St Joseph's Roman Catholic Primary School still has spaces in several sessions and always welcomes prospective parents to look around.

Ofsted inspectors who visited the school last November reported that staff kept a very close check on children's development are were highly alert to those at risk of falling behind. In these cases positive steps were made to ensure the youngsters receive support.

Now thanks to the new technology it will be even easier for the staff to keep tabs on the young children.

Inspectors also noted the outstanding relationship between nursery staff and parents and with other professionals. The only way the inspectors thought the nursery could improve was by providing more opportunities for children to use information technology to support their play.

To contact the nursery email info@stjosephsnursery.co.uk or ring 01380 829821