Tuesday February 24th 2026
Allsort Childcare Centre, Duns
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Paul Kelly
Strengths now just outweigh weaknesses at a Berwickshire childcare facility which was instructed to improve.
A Care Inspectorate report on Allsort Childcare Centre in Duns last summer highlighted “significant weaknesses”.
The care service, which is situated within Duns Primary School, provides a service to a maximum of 50 children at any one time aged from three years up to attending S1 during school holidays.
Improvements were identified in staff recruitment, medication procedures and snack times.
Further improvements were also needed to child protection procedures.
The service was rated ‘weak’ in three areas – the quality of care, play and learning, leadership and the staff team. It was deemed ‘good’ for its setting.
But when two inspectors returned for an unannounced follow-up visit on February 6 it was found that action had been taken to address the short-comings and that, as a result “children’s needs were being met”.
It was found that children were confident, happy, having fun and most were engaged in the experiences available.
The manager and staff were committed to supporting the development of the service.
As a result the service was now rated ‘satisfactory/adequate’ for both its leadership and for suporting children to achieve.
The new report states: “We re-evaluated this heading as satisfactory/adequate where strengths just outweighed the weaknesses.
“We made a requirement at the last inspection to ensure that self evaluation, quality assurance, and auditing procedures were developed. This requirement has been met.
“Although we acknowledge the progress made in certain aspects of quality assurance and auditing, further work is needed to ensure processes were fully established, consistently implemented and used effectively to drive continuous improvement.
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