Introduction
This
inspection was carried out by Ofsted under
Sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006
on the quality and standards of the
registered early years provision. ‘Early
years provision’ refers to provision
regulated by Ofsted for children from birth
to 31 August following their fifth birthday
(the early years age group). The registered
person must ensure that this provision
complies with the statutory framework for
children’s learning, development and
welfare, known as the Early Years
Foundation Stage.
The
report includes information on any
complaints about the childcare provision
which Ofsted has received since the last
inspection or registration whichever is the
later, which require Ofsted or the provider
to take action in Annex C.
The
provider must provide a copy of this report
to all parents with children at the setting
where reasonably practicable. The provider
must provide a copy of the report to any
other person who asks for one, but may
charge a fee for this service (The Childcare
(Inspection) Regulations 2008 regulations 9
and 10)
Description of the
setting
The Wind in the Willows Day
Nursery is a privately owned nursery which
registered under the current provider in
2007. The nursery is registered on the Early
Years Register and operates from an open
plan setting in a purpose built facility,
situated on the Water Eaton residential
estate of Bletchley, close to Milton Keynes.
A maximum of 54 children may attend the
nursery at any one time. The nursery is open
each weekday from 07.30 to 18.30 all year
round. All children share access to a secure
enclosed outdoor play area and come from the
local and surrounding areas.
There are currently 34 children aged from
three months to under five years on roll. Of
these, 10 children currently receive funding
for nursery education. Children come from
the local residential area. The nursery
currently supports a number of children with
special educational needs, and also supports
a number of children who speak English as an
additional language. The nursery employs 11
staff, plus a cook and a cleaner. Of these,
nine staff, including the manager, hold
appropriate early years qualifications and
two staff are working towards
qualifications.
Overall effectiveness of the
early years provision
Children play
happily in a caring environment where
enthusiastic staff work together to support
children. The staff promote inclusive
practice well, supporting and including all
children who attend from a variety of
differing cultural backgrounds. Children's
welfare is mostly safeguarded, although a
full risk assessment is not yet fully
developed. The management are beginning to
evaluate the nursery practices, although the
system for self evaluation is currently
limited.
Staff and management are committed to
improving the quality of care and learning
for all children and show real motivation to
continue the process. Working together with
parents and carers, they are starting to
implement new systems and ideas to
effectively improve children's welfare,
learning and development, although these
systems currently have some weaknesses.
What steps need to be taken
to improve provision further?
|
To
further improve the early years
provision the registered person
should:
-
ensure risk
assessments on all areas of the
nursery are complete and develop
an effective self assessment
procedure
-
further develop
the key person approach and
ensure it is applied effectively
throughout the nursery
-
ensure education
plans are sufficiently developed
to meet the needs of all
children
-
develop the process for
evaluating activities in regard
to children’s learning and
development
|
The
leadership and management of the early years
provision
The management
of the nursery safeguard all children
effectively by implementing appropriate
vetting procedures to ensure all adults
working with children are suitable, with
most staff appropriately qualified. The
setting is beginning to use a key person
approach; however, it is not fully effective
for individual children. As the role of the
key person is not clearly defined, staff do
not understand their specific
responsibilities to individual children. For
example, the key person does not appear to
have special responsibility for children's
personal care, hygiene needs or
communication with parents. This system
provides little personal benefits for
individual children and does not help them
understand that they are unique. To further
safeguard children, secure and effective
entry systems are in place to prevent
unvetted adults entering the premises
without close supervision. All children's
accidents are clearly recorded and
information is collated regularly to ensure
any areas of concern where accidents occur
are removed or replaced. Although a full
risk assessment is not currently in place,
the management team are carrying out daily
observations of many areas of potential risk
across the nursery. Some paperwork regarding
the risks associated with the outdoor area
and outings is in place and the risk
assessment folder is in the process of being
updated. However, there are currently few
risk assessment documents available for
inspection or for staff to use as reference.
The nursery has began to use
self–assessment, although the system
currently in use does not provide an overall
view of the nursery in practice. For
example, it does not take into account the
views of children, staff or parents and
carers. It identifies some areas for
improvement, such as staff training and
development of the outside area. However,
there are no timescales set for improvements
to be achieved. Parents and carers receive
quality information about the nursery and
have access to policies and procedures.
Bright noticeboards provide local community
information and nursery practice details.
Parents and carers are supportive of the
group and are happy with the care given and
the information they receive about their
child's care, learning and development.
There are open communications between staff
and parents through verbal discussion and
the use of questionnaires, alongside social
occasions to gain feedback and develop
relationships.
The quality
and standards of the early years provision
Children
access activities both indoor and outdoors
and are supported by staff as they select
from the range of resources available. The
children play in a spacious and airy
environment, where all the children are able
to make choices and initiate their own
games. Children develop an understanding of
a healthy lifestyle with opportunities for a
variety of daily physical activities.
An improved meal system ensures children eat
a variety of healthy and nutritious meals
and snacks together. Children are aware of
simple hygiene routines from an early age as
staff encourage them to wipe their faces and
hands after meals with individual flannels.
Children learn to keep themselves safe
through stories and explanations from staff,
together with gentle reminders to play
nicely together. Children are happy and
concentrate when playing with playdough,
making a leaf collage or playing in the home
corner. There are opportunities for children
to mark make, such as free painting at the
easels or chalking on large sheets of paper.
Children's enjoyment of stories is evident
as they excitedly join in action stories,
such as, 'we’re going on a bear hunt'. They
listen attentively and move to classical
music or make joint and individual sounds
with musical instruments. Children are
beginning to count during activities, such
as while sorting leaves as they make a
collage. They are beginning to use
technology and develop co-ordination when
using the computer mouse. Children’s
economic well being is progressing with
systems in place to support children with
additional learning or development needs.
Some planned outdoor activities for younger
children develop into joint experiences for
all ages. For example, both age groups of
children and staff play together with a
large pile of dry leaves in the play area,
which they throw over their heads repeatedly
with much laughter. The mixture of staff and
children adds to the excitement as they play
together, building children's confidence
levels and relationships with adults and one
another. Staff play with the younger
children indoors enthusiastically, for
example, reading stories, playing music,
building train tracks and construction
blocks or moving cars around with them.
Treasure baskets are easily accessible to
babies on floor level, containing a variety
of resources to help them learn about
textures, sound and movement. Activities are
planned to meet young children's abilities,
such as chalking, using chunky chalks and
large sheets of paper on the floor; or
painting, with large plastic cars to dip
into the paint to make tyre tracks across a
low covered table.
The staff and management work well together
to provide all children with opportunities
to develop their learning as they access a
range of resources and experiences to engage
them. Activities involve most areas of
learning, although the nursery is
concentrating on personal, social and
emotional development and communication,
language and literacy at the start of the
current term, as there are many new children
attending. Staff are gradually introducing
other areas of learning within creative
activities, where children have
opportunities to develop their language of
calculation, while counting and matching
resources. However, children do not always
benefit from the resources available to
them. For example, name cards with
individual photographs are on display for
children to self-register, but the system to
help children use these effectively is not
reinforced by staff, resulting in children
having fewer opportunities to recognise
their own name.
Planning for activities develops from the
individual children's profiles and the
assessment of random and structured
observations by staff on their key children.
The staff team use this information to
assess children's next steps for individual
learning across the different age groups.
Each member of staff plans a weekly focus
activity to encompass the children's next
steps. However, following these focus
activities, evaluation is not always taking
place in regard to children's learning and
development. As a result, staff are not able
to assess the child's development during the
activity and are not establishing whether
children are achieving their next steps of
learning. Although most staff know children
well and are aware of their individual
abilities and stage of development, the
planning system does not meet all children's
educational needs, as it does not show how
activities can be adapted for those children
who are more or less able.
Annex A:
record of inspection judgements
|
The
key inspection judgements and what
they mean
Outstanding: this aspect of the
provision is of exceptionally high
quality
Good:
this aspect of the provision is
strong
Satisfactory: this aspect of the
provision is sound
Inadequate: this aspect of the
provision is not good enough
|
Overall
effectiveness
|
How
effective is the provision in
meeting the needs of children in the
Early Years Foundation Stage? |
Satisfactory |
|
How
well does the provision promote
inclusive practice? |
Good |
|
The
capacity of the provision to
maintain continuous improvement. |
Satisfactory |
Leadership and
management
|
How
effectively is provision in the
Early Years Foundation Stage led and
managed? |
Satisfactory |
|
How
effective is the setting’s
self-evaluation, including the steps
taken to promote improvement? |
Satisfactory |
|
How
well does the setting work in
partnership with parents and others? |
Good |
|
How
well are children safeguarded? |
Satisfactory |
Q
QQuality and
standards
|
How
effectively are children in the
Early Years Foundation Stage helped
to learn and develop? |
Satisfactory |
|
How
effectively is the welfare of
children in the Early Years
Foundation Stage promoted? |
Satisfactory |
|
How
well are children helped to stay
safe? |
Satisfactory |
|
How
well are children helped to be
healthy? |
Good |
|
How
well are children helped to enjoy
and achieve? |
Satisfactory |
|
How
well are children helped to make a
positive contribution? |
Good |
|
How
well are children helped develop
skills that will contribute to their
future economic well-being? |
Satisfactory |
|
Any
complaints about the inspection or
report should be made following the
procedures set out in the guidance
available from Ofsted’s website:
www.ofsted.gov.uk |
