Vicarage Nursery @ Christ Church

Vicarage Nursery School Inspection report for early years provision

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Unique reference number 109251 Inspection date 24/05/2012 Inspector Jennifer Beckles

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Setting address Christ Church, Christchurch Road, East Sheen, London, SW14 7RT Telephone number 07941222315 Email jwilliams@vicaragenurseries.com Type of setting Childcare - Non-Domestic to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children, safeguarding and child protection. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk.

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You may copy all or parts of this document for non-commercial educational purposes, as long as you give details of the source and date of publication and do not alter the information in any way.

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T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk This inspection was carried out under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006

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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.

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Introduction

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).

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Introduction

Please see our website for more information about each childcare provider. We publish inspection reports, conditions of registration and details of complaints we receive where we or the provider take action to meet the requirements of registration. This inspection was carried out under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006

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Description of the setting

Vicarage Nursery School registered under the present owner in May 2000. It operates from a small hall attached to Christ Church in East Sheen, located in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The nursery serves the local community. All children have shared access to a secure, enclosed outside area. The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register for a maximum of 18 children at any one time in the early years age range, all from the age of two and upwards. The nursery is open each weekday from 9am to 12:10pm, and also from 1pm to 3pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, during term time only. There are currently 18 children aged from two years to under five years on roll. The nursery currently has provision to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The nursery employs four staff assisted by a part-time volunteer. All, staff, including the manager, hold appropriate early years qualifications.

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The overall effectiveness of the early years provision

Overall the quality of the provision is outstanding.

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The overall effectiveness of the early years provision

The nursery offers an exceptionally well organised and inspirational learning environment. Thoroughly effective plans based on the individual needs of children serve to promote exceptional outcomes of them. Children's safety is paramount and is supported by highly effective staff practice and comprehensive procedures. Partnerships with parents and others are robust, and work extremely well to produce excellent outcomes for children. The nursery has an astute awareness of its strengths and weaknesses and has set highly appropriate targets for the future. It has a generally excellent capacity to improve its provision and future outcomes for children.

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further?

To further improve the high quality early years provision the registered person should consider:

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further?

 enhancing staff's ability to drive improvement further by developing and sharing best practice with other practitioners through local, regional and national networking.

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the early years provision

Children's safety is of the utmost priority to staff. Staff maintain a robust portfolio of policies and procedures, which are rigorously followed to ensure excellent protection of children. Staff implement a comprehensive, detailed risk assessment, covering all areas, equipment and resources. They follow daily checklists This inspection was carried out under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 meticulously, so that children are exceptionally well protected. High staff to child ratios provide excellent levels of supervision to further support their safety. Children are exceedingly well cared for by staff that are vetted comprehensively due to thorough and detailed recruitment procedures, as being highly suitable to work with children.

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the early years provision

The learning environment is hugely inspirational and remarkably well organised. A large digging area in the church garden encourages children to immerse themselves in discovery play. A pond containing frog spawn, has colourful, vivid pictures of the life cycle of frogs beside it that help children make connections across their learning. The lawn is used for children and staff to gather and spontaneously sing songs to a guitar accompaniment, so children see an instrument played. Staff create cosy dens from arbors in the garden, that encourage children's conversations. Excellent organisation of the indoor environment includes an extremely well resourced book corner containing a huge range of high quality fiction and non fiction books. Additionally, staff provide a dedicated area in which children work together in small groups.

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the early years provision

The staff are highly driven to continually improve the provision and constantly evaluate levels of children's care and learning provided by the nursery. Their deep reflection on the provision has led to an improvement in learning experiences for boys. Views of parents and children inform key priorities for development and staff actively seek their views through regular questionnaires and discussion. Parents speak very highly of the nursery and its staff. One parent comments, 'My child hates the school holidays because it means he can't come to the nursery school' while others speak of how extremely approachable staff are and of their high levels of knowledge and skills. Parents are extremely well informed of their child's progress because they have regular meetings with staff and are given children's folders containing summaries of their development. These folders contain samples of annotated work and photographs of their skills and achievements. Parents may

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the early years provision

be extremely involved in their children's learning because they complete comment sheets within their child's folder which allow them to share their own observations of their child with staff. Also, they contribute ideas on topics for learning, such as 'minibeasts' and 'vehicles', following children's interests. Exceptionally high quality observations of the children by staff are used very effectively to form individual plans for children. These plans are wholly relevant to, and very specific about, the learning needs of individual children. Excellent progress is achieved because staff identify the next steps for children's learning accurately and incorporate these within individual plans, so they meet each child's individual needs exceedingly well.

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the early years provision

Excellent partnerships with a range of local schools help to ensure that children are ready for school. Teachers from local schools visit the nursery to get to know the children and discuss children with staff so that they settle well. Their visits also support children's continued learning. The dedicated nursery staff visit the children once they have started school to see how they are getting along in the school environment, which helps to inform their practice. There are very well established links with community professionals, such as speech therapists, occupational therapists who visit the nursery to offer advice and ideas to support children's development. A partnership with the community nurse encourages her to visit the nursery to talk to the children about how to keep their teeth and gums clean and This inspection was carried out under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 healthy, and the importance of hand hygiene. All of these partnerships enhance

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the early years provision

children's learning in all aspects. Staff offer caring, highly individual support to any children who has special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff detect any inequalities in learning opportunities through regular evaluation and resolve this very effectively. Staff use a very good range of multicultural resources and physical disability dolls and puzzles to support children's learning about diversity very effectively.

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and outcomes for children

Children are highly articulate, very confident and strongly curious, independent learners. Excellent relationships between staff and children help them to feel very secure and content. Behaviour is exemplary as children listen and respond positively to adults' high expectations. They know and follow 'ground rules' for behaviour; older children remind and support younger or new children to behave well. Children have excellent knowledge of how to keep themselves safe by, for example, not throwing sand because it will 'hurt your eyes'; they have excellent road safety awareness. Children use tools with great skill and care.

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and outcomes for children

Children have exceptional awareness of how to keep themselves healthy. They make nutritious snack choices and talk about how fruit and vegetables help to keep them strong. They also know about the health benefits of sleep, fresh air and exercise. Each day, they go into the church garden for fresh air and daily exercise. Children use a wide range of large and small apparatus to develop excellent physical skills, such as climbing, balancing, skipping, running and hopping. Visits from the community nurse have helped children to develop an excellent understanding of the need to keep hands and teeth clean. Children wash their hands independently and thoroughly at appropriate times and pictorial reminders support children in the process. They dispose of used paper towels hygienically by using their feet to operate pedal bins and so eliminate the risk of cross infection.

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and outcomes for children

Children make excellent progress in the learning because staff make thoroughly relevant plans that are specific to each child's individual needs. Staff support children's learning with great skill and make timely interventions to extend learning. Music is a strong focus of the nursery and children have developed excellent singing and performing skills as they confidently sing songs in front of others while staff play the guitar. Singing and music enhances all aspects of children's learning, such as names of primary and secondary colours and how rainbows are formed; children hold rainbow coloured ribbons and sing a rainbow song. Children use technology with great competence and interest. Children recognise their names with ease as they register their attendance in the morning; many write their own names on their work independently. Older children use their knowledge of letters and corresponding sounds to write words and sentences with

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and outcomes for children

great skill. Staff skilfully enhance children's literacy skills daily by, for example, choosing helpers to give out snacks according to the initial letter sound in their names. Children develop an excellent sense of responsibility by giving out snacks to children and taking on other small tasks. This inspection was carried out under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 Children delight in using highly developed imaginations and create fantastic role play scenarios involving knights, queens, and castles. The digging area in the church garden becomes a place to create potions 'to put the evil knights to sleep'. Children very effectively negotiate and delegate roles as they organise a bus trip during this pretend play. They use excellent counting skills as they work out how many more passengers can 'board the bus' and how many will be unable to embark.

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and outcomes for children

Firm friendships are formed as children relax in dens in the garden and talk to each other. They are fascinated by the growth of tadpoles and sit by the frog spawn pond to discuss the differences in the tadpoles over time and how they will change in future. Children use technology with great competence and interest. Relationships are harmonious between children. They relate very well to each other and older children take great care of younger ones. Children learn about different ways of life, cultures and traditions as they learn about different countries throughout the year. Staff support this further by celebrating significant cultural events, such as Chinese New Year by turning the home corner into a Chinese restaurant serving real noodles. This inspection was carried out under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006

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Annex A: record of inspection judgements

The key inspection judgements and what they mean

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Annex A: record of inspection judgements

Grade 1 is Outstanding: this aspect of the provision is of exceptionally high quality Grade 2 is Good: this aspect of the provision is strong Grade 3 is Satisfactory: this aspect of the provision is sound Grade 4 is Inadequate: this aspect of the provision is not good enough

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children in the Early Years Foundation Stage?

The capacity of the provision to maintain continuous improvement

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Early Years Foundation Stage

The effectiveness of leadership and management in embedding ambition and driving improvement The effectiveness with which the setting deploys resources 1 The effectiveness with which the setting promotes equality and diversity The effectiveness of safeguarding 1 The effectiveness of the setting’s self-evaluation, including the steps taken to promote improvement The effectiveness of partnerships 1 The effectiveness of the setting’s engagement with parents and carers

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Stage

The quality of the provision in the Early Years Foundation Stage 1

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Stage

The extent to which children achieve and enjoy their learning 1 The extent to which children feel safe 1 The extent to which children adopt healthy lifestyles 1 The extent to which children make a positive contribution 1 The extent to which children develop skills for the future 1

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Stage

procedures set out in the guidance available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk This inspection was carried out under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006

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