Parents have hit out at Ofsted’s satisfactory grading of their children’s nursery by entering it into the KalliKids awards.

Each Peach Childcare, Wilbury Villas, Hove, won third place as best child provider for two to four-year-olds out of more than 300 childcare services and providers.

KalliKids Best is a national award which aims to champion parent’s opinions by allowing them to nominate their childcare provider for awards in various categories.

Kate Peach, managing director of Each Peach, entered the awards after Ofsted visited the nursery and left it with a satisfactory grading.

Mrs Peach said: “My world absolutely fell out from underneath me as everything I’d ever worked towards was threatened.”

She also said that many parents were outraged at the result and felt that their judgement in choosing the nursery had been called into question by Ofsted.

Parent Terrie Foster, 38, of Worthing, said: “The grading should have been better. The staff interact amazingly with the children.

“The nursery deserves the recognition.”

Each Peach have since been short-listed for four awards in the annual NMT (National Management Today) awards: Individual Nursery, Nursery Website, Nursery Apprentice (Neal Allistone) and Nursery Team of the Year.

Mrs Peach said: “It was overwhelming. To have our customers say we’re worth the award makes what we do worthwhile.”

She formally complained to Ofsted and joined an ongoing nationwide initiative, the Ofsted Big Conversation, to reverse what she considers to be an unfair grading culture.