Busy Bees Day Nursery at Swindon Peatmoor

INSPECTION DETAILS

Inspection Date 21/06/2004 Inspector Name Rachel Edwards

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SETTING DETAILS

Day Care Type Full Day Care Setting Name Leap Frog (Swindon Peatmoor) Setting Address Peatmoor Village Centre Shearwood Rd,Peatmoor Swindon Wiltshire SN5 5DJ

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ORGANISATION DETAILS

Name Princess Christian Day Nursery Address Anglia House, Eden Place Cheadle Cheshire SK8 1AT

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ORGANISATION DETAILS

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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ABOUT THE INSPECTION

The purpose of this inspection is to assure government, parents and the public of the quality and standard of day care in accordance with the National Standards for Under Eights Day Care and Childminding; and that the nursery education for funded three and four year old children is of an acceptable quality. Inspection of nursery education also identifies strengths and weaknesses so that providers can improve the quality of educational provision and help children to achieve the early learning goals (elgs) by the end of the Foundation Stage. This inspection report must be made available to all parents. If the setting has been inspected previously, an action plan will have been drawn up to tackle issues identified. This inspection, therefore, must also assess what progress has been made in the implementation of this plan.

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Information about the setting

Princess Christian Day Nursery opened in 1998. It operates from purpose-built premises at Shearwood Road, Peatmoor, Swindon. The two storey premises include entrance hall, office, kitchen, 10 childcare rooms, toilets and nappy change areas on each floor. Children are accomodated in groups according to age, with the under two's on the ground floor and older children on the first floor. There are enclosed outdoor play areas which have grass and hard surfaces. The nursery serves the local area. There are currently 71 children from 12 weeks to four years on roll. This includes 18 funded three-year-olds and 9 funded four-year-olds. Children attend for a variety of sessions. The nursery supports children with special needs and those with English as an additional language. The nursery opens from Monday to Friday all year round except Christmas and the New Year. Sessions are from 07:30 to 18:00. 17 staff work with the children, in addition there is a manager and cook. Nine staff

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Information about the setting

have early years qualifications. Five are on training programmes.

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How good is the Day Care?

Princess Christian Day Nursery provides satisfactory care for children. There are well written policies and procedures in place. However these are not being consistently implemented. Until the recent appointment, the nursery was without a permanent manager for five months. Ofsted was not informed of the interim arrangements. The nursery is committed to training and over half the staff have childcare qualifications with others on training programmes. The required minimum adult: child ratio is not always met, especially at the start of the day and over lunchtime. The premises are bright and welcoming and children can easily reach the toys. There is no domestic style furniture in the under two's rooms, to help young children learning to walk and for the comfort of staff nursing them. There are

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How good is the Day Care?

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 insufficient resources for all children, to promote diversity of culture, gender and disability. The nursery is very safe and secure. Staff implement most health and safety requirements well. Appropriate hygiene procedures are followed. The children are provided with nutritious meals and snacks. Younger children are offered drinks frequently but pre-school children do not have free access to fresh drinking water. Staff have a good understanding of child protection issues. Staff form good relationships with the children, who are generally happy and settled. The staff interact particularly well with the babies, ensuring their needs are well met. However individual needs are not well met for the two to four-year-olds. Staff plan a

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How good is the Day Care?

range of activities but for the two to three's these are not always developmentally appropriate and staff have unrealistic expectations for behaviour. Planning for the pre-school does not cover all areas of the curriculum in sufficient detail. Children regularly use the large outdoor area for physical play. Staff have a friendly relationship with parents. Parents have informal and planned opportunities to share information about their children.

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What has improved since the last inspection?

At the last inspection the nursery was asked to: 1. improve the organisation by making sure at least half of staff were appropriately qualified, ensuring the minimum adult: child ratios are met at all times, have adequate contingency arrangements to maintain staffing cover and to ensure staff complete records to help in the safe and efficient running of the nursery; 2. improve safety by not leaving children with unvetted persons, ensuring staff received induction training to cover health and safety and child protection in their first week and ensuring windows are not a hazard; 3. improve resources by providing more domestic style furniture and extending resources that reflect positive images of disability; 4. make provision for pre-school children to rest or sleep; and 5. follow hygienic hand drying procedures. The nursery has made progress in some of these areas: 1. over half the staff now have at least a level 2 in childcare and records are

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What has improved since the last inspection?

correctly completed, however minimum adult: child ratios are still frequently exceeded at certain times; of day and contingency arrangements are not always adequate to maintain staff cover; 2. children are never left with unvetted persons, all windows have safety locks and staff receive induction training, although this does not always include child protection;

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What has improved since the last inspection?

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 3. there is still no domestic furniture and resources to reflect positive images of disability are still inadequate; 4. there is no satisfactory provision for pre-school children to rest or sleep during the day; and 5. hands are now dried hygienically.

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What is being done well?

• Staff interact warmly with babies. they give good attention to meeting babies' individual needs for eating, sleeping and changing and exchanging information with their parents. • There are comprehensive policies for all safety issues. Staff implement these well and make children's safety both inside and outside the nursery a high priority. • Children enjoy regularly playing outside in the large, well enclosed outdoor area. • Staff have a friendly relationship with parents, who are welcomed into the nursery. They are able to exchange information on a daily basis and there are planned opportunities to discuss children's progress during the year.

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What needs to be improved?

• information given to Ofsted about relevant changes and matters • staffing arrangements to ensure that minimum adult: child ratios are met at all times • the management and organisation so that staff are clear about their roles and responsibilities and can implement the nursery's policies and procedures • staff's attention to children's individual needs, especially for rest and water in pre-school, ensuring all children have enough to eat and giving adequate adult support to all children • staff's knowledge of the developmental needs of children aged two to three years and the provision of activities appropriate to their stage of development • the educational provision for the children aged 3 to 5 years • resources, by providing domestic style furniture and increasing the range of toys and equipment that reflect positive images of culture, gender and disability • consistency of behaviour management, using appropriate methods.

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Outcome of the inspection

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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CONDITIONS OF REGISTRATION

All registered persons must comply with all conditions of registration included on his/her certificate of registration. As a result of this inspection conditions of registration have been imposed / varied / removed and a new certificate of registration will be issued.

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The Registered Person must take the following actions by the date shown

Std Action Date 2 Ensure that the required adult:child ratios are met at all times. 19/07/2004

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The Registered Person must take the following actions by the date shown

1 Ensure that Ofsted is informed of relevant changes and matters. 01/08/2004

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by the time of the next inspection

Std Recommendation 2 Ensure that all staff, including management, are clear about their roles and responsibilities and implement nursery policies and procedures so that the operational plan works in practice. 9 Make sure that staff are attentive to the individual needs of all children so that their needs for rest, food, drink and sufficient adult support are met. 5 Improve resources by providing more domestic style furniture in 0-2’s rooms so that young children can pull themselves up and staff can comfortably and safely nurse children and ensure that children have an appropriate range of activities and resources that promote equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice 11 Ensure that all staff, manage children’s behaviour by consistently using methods appropriate to the children’s development and understanding

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by the time of the next inspection

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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How effective is the nursery education?

Princess Christian Day Nursery provides acceptable quality nursery education overall but there are significant areas for improvement. Children's progress is limited in personal, social and emotional development, mathematical development and communication, language and literacy. Children make generally good progress towards the early learning goals in creative and physical development and knowledge and understanding of the world. Teaching has significant weaknesses, which hinder children's progress in several aspects of their learning. Staff are caring and form good relationships with the children. Resources are generally well organised to enable children to choose and work independently. Staff provide a range of activities linked to the six areas of learning but are unsure of the knowledge, skills, understanding and attitudes that the children need to gain. They miss opportunities to ask questions or present activities

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How effective is the nursery education?

in a way that will challenge and interest children and help them to develop their own ideas. Organisation is weak and staff are not clear of their roles. Time is wasted setting up or moving between activities. Consequently children become bored and disruptive and although staff use positive methods to manage behaviour they do not consistently set clear boundaries. Staff review and report on children's achievements twice each year but little use is made of this to plan what children need to do next. There are significant weaknesses within leadership and management. Staff lack experience in monitoring how effectively activities and routines are contributing to children's wellbeing and learning. New management has identified gaps in staff knowledge and plans to provide training which staff welcome. The partnership with parents is generally good. Parents spend time talking informally to staff about their children and there are also planned meetings. They receive

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How effective is the nursery education?

information about topics and activities and most speak positively about the setting.

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What is being done well?

• The staff have good relationships with the children. They are warm and caring and get to know the children and their families well. • Children's physical skills are developed very effectively through a good range of indoor and outdoor activities. • Children design and build skilfully with a range of construction materials. They often work co-operatively discussing and refining their models. • Children are able to explore colour and texture in a variety of materials and are given time and encouragement to freely express their ideas. • Parents are made very welcome in the nursery. They have a friendly relationship with the staff and are able to share information about their child's

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What is being done well?

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 development every day. They are well informed about the activities provided which enables them to talk to their children about their day.

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What needs to be improved?

• staff's knowledge and understanding of the foundation stage and early learning goals and the different ways in which children learn • planning and monitoring of the curriculum so that the six areas of learning are covered in sufficient detail • organisation of the daily routine, time and staff deployment so that children do not have to sit for too long and are purposefully occupied at all times • assessment of children's progress towards the early learning goals, based on regular observations and the use of these to plan activities that will help children progress to the next stage of learning

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What has improved since the last inspection?

Poor progress has been made in tackling the points for development identified in the previous inspection report. These suggested the nursery extend the methods of recording observations of children and continue to develop the outside area to provide a wider variety of activities to more closely link the inside and outside curriculum. Since the last inspection, staff have stopped recording observations of children's progress towards the early learning goals. This has very recently been identified as an area for improvement and is in the process of being introduced. The outside area continues to be well used for physical play but no changes have been made to use the outside more widely across other areas of the curriculum.

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What has improved since the last inspection?

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Judgement: Significant Weaknesses Most children are confident and settled within the group. When children are sufficiently interested or encouraged by staff, they are able to concentrate well and persevere with difficult tasks, such as completing a puzzle. However, insufficient planning and poor organisation means that children frequently have to sit for long periods. This leads to disruptive behaviour, which is inconsistently managed by staff and children lack clear boundaries.

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COMMUNICATION, LANGUAGE AND LITERACY

Judgement: Significant Weaknesses Children are confident speakers and are able to express their thoughts and ideas, for example when working together to construct a complex building. Most recognise their name on their coat peg and some are beginning to recognise some letters and the sounds they make. Some children are attempting to write their name. There is a limited selection of books in poor condition and children rarely choose to look at these. They have few opportunities to 'write' for a purpose.

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MATHEMATICAL DEVELOPMENT

Judgement: Significant Weaknesses Children count well and are beginning to recognise numerals. They enjoy singing number rhymes. They recognise simple shapes and can choose appropriate shapes for a purpose. However staff demonstrate a lack of understanding of how to develop children's mathematical awareness. They rarely use the daily routine or practical everyday activities to develop children's understanding or to solve simple problems. Older and more able children are not sufficiently challenged.

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KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD

Judgement: Generally Good Children are skilled at building and designing models with a range of materials. They are able to explore and investigate the properties of sand and water and observe change during cooking activities. They talk confidently about themselves and are developing an awareness of other cultures such as when learning about the Chinese New Year. Children have limited opportunities to find out about their own environment or the natural world e.g. they only occasionally grow seeds or hunt for bugs.

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KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING OF THE WORLD

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT

Judgement: Generally Good Children play outside daily in a good sized area, using a variety of small and large equipment. They are developing good skill and control as they climb, balance, run, pedal and throw and catch. An outside specialist teacher leads a movement and music session each week and children are developing a sense of rhythm and co-ordination. They use a range of tools and materials with increasing control but progress is limited by not having daily access to a range of brushes, pencils, dough etc.

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CREATIVE DEVELOPMENT

Judgement: Generally Good Children have good opportunities to explore colour and form through craft and construction activities. Children enjoy singing and experimenting with the sounds made by various instruments. They are able to move and play in rhythm. They are given freedom and encouragement to explore their ideas creatively, especially through art. Children enjoy role play but their imagination is not well developed. There are insufficient props and adult interaction to help children develop their play.

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Children's spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development is not fostered

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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OUTCOME OF THE INSPECTION

The provision is acceptable but has some significant areas for improvement. Children's progress towards the early learning goals is limited by some significant weaknesses. The next inspection will take place in one to two years time.

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WHAT THE SETTING NEEDS TO DO NEXT: THE KEY ISSUES

• Develop staff's knowledge and understanding of the foundation stage and early learning goals and the different ways in which children learn. Devise and implement a system for monitoring and evaluating the quality of teaching. • Improve planning and monitoring of the curriculum so that the six areas of learning are covered in sufficient detail. • Review the organisation of the daily routine, time and staff deployment so that children do not have to sit for too long and are purposefully occupied at all times. • Implement an effective method of assessing children's progress towards the early learning goals, based on regular observations and use of these to plan activities that will help children progress to the next stage of learning.

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WHAT THE SETTING NEEDS TO DO NEXT: THE KEY ISSUES

The provider must draw up an action plan within 40 working days of receipt of this report showing how the key issues detailed above will be addressed. The action plan must be made available to all parents and to the Local Authority if required. An evaluation of the action taken will form part of the next inspection of funded nursery education.

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WHAT THE SETTING NEEDS TO DO NEXT: THE KEY ISSUES

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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STANDARD 1 - SUITABLE PERSON

Adults providing day care, looking after children or having unsupervised access to them are suitable to do so.

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STANDARD 2 - ORGANISATION

The registered person meets required adult: child ratios, ensures that training and qualifications requirements are met and organises space and resources to meet the children's needs effectively.

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STANDARD 3 - CARE, LEARNING AND PLAY

The registered person meets children's individual needs and promotes their welfare. They plan and provide activities and play opportunities to develop children's emotional, physical, social and intellectual capabilities.

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STANDARD 4 - PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

The premises are safe, secure and suitable for their purpose. They provide adequate space in an appropriate location, are welcoming to children and offer access to the necessary facilities for a range of activities which promote their development.

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STANDARD 5 - EQUIPMENT

Furniture, equipment and toys are provided which are appropriate for their purpose and help to create an accessible and stimulating environment. They are of suitable design and condition, well maintained and conform to safety standards.

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STANDARD 6 - SAFETY

The registered person takes positive steps to promote safety within the setting and on outings and ensures proper precautions are taken to prevent accidents.

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STANDARD 7 - HEALTH

The registered person promotes the good health of children and takes positive steps to prevent the spread of infection and appropriate measures when they are ill.

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STANDARD 8 - FOOD AND DRINK

Children are provided with regular drinks and food in adequate quantities for their needs. Food and drink is properly prepared, nutritious and complies with dietary and religious requirements.

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STANDARD 9 - EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

The registered person and staff actively promote equality of opportunity and anti-discriminatory practice for all children.

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NEEDS AND DISABILITIES)

The registered person is aware that some children may have special needs and is

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NEEDS AND DISABILITIES)

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 proactive in ensuring that appropriate action can be taken when such a child is identified or admitted to the provision. Steps are taken to promote the welfare and development of the child within the setting in partnership with the parents and other relevant parties.

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STANDARD 11 - BEHAVIOUR

Adults caring for children in the provision are able to manage a wide range of children's behaviour in a way which promotes their welfare and development.

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STANDARD 12 - WORKING IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PARENTS AND CARERS

The registered person and staff work in partnership with parents and to meet the needs of the children, both individually and as a group. Information is shared.

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STANDARD 13 - CHILD PROTECTION

The registered person complies with local child protection procedures approved by the Area Child Protection Committee and ensures that all adults working and looking after children in the provision are able to put the procedures into practice.

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STANDARD 14 - DOCUMENTATION

Records, policies and procedures which are required for the efficient and safe management of the provision, or to promote the welfare, care and learning of children are maintained. Records about individual children are shared with the child's parent.

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STANDARD 14 - DOCUMENTATION

This inspection was carried out under the provisions of Part XA of the Children Act 1989, as inserted by the Care Standards Act 2000; and Section 122 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998

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