The Play Pit

Play Pit Day Nursery 9 Brownlow Road, Felixstowe, Suffolk, IP11 7EX

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 10/12/2012 09/02/2009

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early years provision

This inspection: 4 Previous inspection: 2 How well the early years provision meets the needs of the range of children who attend The contribution of the early years provision to the well-being of children 4 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 4

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This provision is inadequate

 Recruitment procedures are not adhered to or monitored effectively. As a result there are occasions when adults whose suitability has not yet been checked are left unsupervised with children.  Not all practitioners have a clear enough understanding of safeguarding procedures and as a result children's safety is not assured.  Planning is not always specific and sharply focused enough, therefore some children are not fully supported to make the best progress possible.  The is sometimes a delay between identifying the next steps in the children's development and planning for it. Therefore children are not always sufficiently challenged.

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It has the following strengths

 Children's independence skills are encouraged well enabling them to take an active role in their daily routines, be confident and build self-esteem.  Children's learning is promoted well through play, discussions and group activities because the staff have a secure knowledge and understanding of how to engage and capture children's interests.  Staff regularly make improvements to the environment to ensure that it a stimulating and exciting place for the children to explore.

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Information about this inspection

Inspections of registered early years provision are scheduled:  at least once in every inspection cycle. The current cycle ends on 31 July 2016  more frequently where Ofsted identifies a need to do so, for example where provision was previously judged as inadequate  brought forward in the inspection cycle where Ofsted has received information that suggests the provision may not be meeting the legal requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage; or where assessment of the provision identifies a need for early inspection  prioritised for inspection where we have received information that the provision is not meeting the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage and which suggests children may not be safe  at the completion of an investigation into failure to comply with the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

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Information about this inspection

The provision is also registered on the voluntary and compulsory parts of the Childcare Register. This report includes a judgment about compliance with the requirements of that register.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed activities in all the play rooms and the outdoor learning environment.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector held meetings with the managers of the provision, spoke to staff and trainees and interacted with the children.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at children's assessment records, planning documentation, evidence of suitability of staff working within the setting, the provider's self- evaluation and a range of other documentation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector also took account of the views of parents and carers spoken to on the day of inspection and information included in the self-evaluation documents.

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Information about the setting

The Play Pit Day Nursery was registered in 1990 on the Early Years Register and the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. It operates from eight rooms in a detached house in Felixstowe, Suffolk. The nursery serves the local area and is accessible to all children. There is a fully enclosed area available for outdoor play.

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Information about the setting

The nursery employs 18 members of child care staff. Of these, 14 hold appropriate early years qualifications including one with Early Years Professional Status.

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Information about the setting

The nursery opens Monday to Friday all year round. Sessions are from 7.30am until 6pm. Children attend for a variety of sessions. The nursery has a breakfast and after school club as well as a holiday play scheme for school age children. There are currently 76 children attending who are in the early years age group. The nursery provides funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. It supports a number of children who speak English as an additional language and children with special needs and/or disabilities.

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must:

 ensure that people whose suitability has not been checked, including through a criminal records check, do not have unsupervised contact with children being cared for  ensure all staff understand and adhere to the nursery's safeguarding policies and procedures; this is with regard to not leaving adults, whose suitability has not been checked, unsupervised with children.

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To further improve the quality of the early years provision the provider should:

 review planning to ensure it is precise and sharply focused to enable less experienced staff to understand the learning intentions fully

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To further improve the quality of the early years provision the provider should:

 develop the educational programme further to consistently ensure that next steps in children's development are planned for promptly once identified.

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who attend

Children make good progress across all areas of learning because staff have a secure knowledge and understanding of how children learn. They get to know the children well, especially their key children and plan a range of stimulating activities to support their development. Babies who are becoming mobile and enjoy crawling and exploring are provided with resources to encourage this. For example, they use an activity garden and tunnel which they can crawl through, pull themselves up on and discover a range of sounds and motions by pushing buttons and spinning dials. In addition, their favourite toys are put in other areas of the room to encourage them to crawl to find them. Children are supported to use a range of resources to help develop pencil skills. For example, they make patterns in sand, oats, glue and in paint. Older children write shopping lists as they role-play getting the shopping for staff and visitors and proudly write their names on their

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who attend

pictures. Staff praise their attempts at letters and draw their attention to the letters that are in their names.

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who attend

Children are confident communicators, babies play with sounds and repeat favourite ones engaging staff who join in with them. Older children use a small voice recorder and delight in playing back their own voice as they speak or sing into it. Visual picture clues and gestures are used to accompany language to support children who speak English as an additional language. Children are given time to listen and process new words and enjoy the repartition of rhymes in stories and songs.

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who attend

Staff understand that children have different levels of attention and skilfully adapt activities to suit the children present. For example, when children find it hard to sit still during circle time they are given choices as to what they want to do. This enables them to enjoy alternatives, such as, action rhymes where they can join in and move around.

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who attend

Staff take it in turns to plan using the observations they record on the children. The plans cover all areas of development and follow children's interests. The majority of staff know what they want the children to achieve through the activities and how to support them with their next steps. However, planning is not always sharply focused for the less experienced members of staff to follow and there is sometimes a delay between the staff identifying the next step and planning for it. Therefore, some children may not move on as quickly as they could.

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who attend

Opportunities for children to be part of their community are developing well. For example, displayed photographs show a recent camp day outing where children learn about nature, camping and farm animals. They develop their own garden environment and show great interest as they watch frogs develop from frogspawn and plants grow from seeds. Parents have many opportunities to be involved in their child's learning and development within the nursery. They share information daily as they bring and collect their children. Additional, more formal appointments are made to provide opportunities to look through their child's developmental records and discuss future planning with their child's key person.

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The contribution of the early years provision to the well-being of children

Children have a false sense of security, as adults who are not yet checked as suitable are occasionally left unsupervised with them. However, children learn how to keep themselves safe as staff remind them to walk indoors, to be careful with the glass snow globe and to sit down to eat. They learn about road safety when out and school age children have appropriate car seats and restraints.

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The contribution of the early years provision to the well-being of children

Children are happy, confident and settle well. They build close relationships with staff and develop some firm friendships with their peers. Staff effectively give attention to developing children's learning in the prime areas when they first start at the nursery. As a result the children are confident to explore all areas of their environment and independent skills develop from an early age. Babies happily access resources from low-level shelving and toddlers spread their crackers and clear up their plates and cups after meals. Older children serve themselves at meal times which helps them to learn about portion size and to make decisions for themselves. Meal times are sociable occasions where the staff sit with the children to eat. Great care is taken to ensure that the meals are balanced, healthy and respect children's individual dietary needs.

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The contribution of the early years provision to the well-being of children

Children's physical and emotional wellbeing is supported well because staff work closely with parents and discuss individual care practices with them from the beginning. For example, babies' home routines are followed which enables them to sleep, eat and play according to their individual needs. Older children take responsibility for their sleeping and eating as they choose to have snack when they are hungry and ask to go to bed when they are tired. They enjoy physical play both indoors and out and use the nursery garden daily. The older children negotiate skilfully as they scoot the scooters around other children and equipment, climb up the slides and balance on tyres.

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The contribution of the early years provision to the well-being of children

Children are supported very well with transitions within the nursery. They move from the upstairs younger rooms to the downstairs as a small group, enabling them to stay with some friends and familiar faces. Transitions are discussed with parents to ensure that they think their child is ready. The child's key person accompanies the children for short visits and introduces them to their new key person. Children only move when they are happy and feel safe. Children are prepared effectively for transitions into school as close links are built and visits from the teachers are well established. Parents report that their children are able to make very smooth transitions into school due to the time and care that staff put into the process. They say that the staff are friendly, approachable and welcoming.

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provision

Not all staff have a clear understanding of how to keep children safe. Although there are suitable, clear policies and procedures for the recruitment and induction of new staff members, these are not consistently followed. For example, children are occasionally left in the care of adults whose suitability has not been checked. As a result, children's safety is not assured.

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provision

The majority of staff have attended recent training in safeguarding children from abuse and neglect and all staff know who to report concerns to. They carry out daily risk assessments and the premises and equipment are safe for children to use. The premises are secure, ensuring children cannot leave unattended and unauthorised persons cannot gain access. There are also robust systems in place to make sure that children only leave with authorised persons.

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provision

Staff work as a strong team and support each other. They are keen to improve their practice further and their professional development is supported. The managers encourage their staff to develop to their full potential and they provide opportunities for them to take responsibility. For example, they take turns to plan, lead activities and develop areas of the environment. They are encouraged to reflect on their practice and learn from each other by sharing ideas.

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provision

The managers and staff have a good understanding of the learning and development requirements and monitor the effectiveness of their programme to ensure that children make good progress. They are effective in identifying their strengths and have many plans for future improvement. For example, they have arranged for a whole group training in Maketon signing to support children's communication. They are also in the process of developing an investigation area and are extending resources to include items that children can take apart and explore. This is in direct response to identifying an interest in a group of three-year-old children.

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provision

The nursery works hard to strengthen partnerships with parents, other settings that the children attend and local schools. These links are now well established and valued by all parties, ensuring children are cared for consistently and can make good progress.

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The Childcare Register

The requirements for the compulsory part of the Childcare Register are

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actions)

The requirements for the voluntary part of the Childcare Register are

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To meet the requirements of the Childcare Register the provider must:

 ensure that any person caring for children is suitable to work with children which must include obtaining an enhanced Criminal Records Bureau check (Suitability of persons to care for, or have regular contact with) (both parts of the Childcare Register)  take action as specified above (Suitability of persons to care for, or have regular contact with).

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Grade Judgement Description

Grade 1 Outstanding Outstanding provision is highly effective in meeting the needs of all children exceptionally well. This ensures that children are very well prepared for the next stage of their learning. Grade 2 Good Good provision is effective in delivering provision that meets the needs of all children well. This ensures children are ready for the next stage of their learning. Grade 3 Satisfactory Satisfactory provision is performing less well than expectations in one or more of the key areas. It requires improvement in order to be good. Grade 4 Inadequate Provision that is inadequate requires significant improvement and/or enforcement. The provision is failing to give children an acceptable standard of early years education and/or is not meeting the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. It will be inspected again within 12 months of the date of this inspection.

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Grade Judgement Description

Met The provision has no children on roll. The inspection judgement is that the provider continues to meet the requirements for registration. Not Met The provision has no children on roll. The inspection judgement is that the provider does not meet the requirements for registration.

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Inspection

This inspection was carried out by Ofsted under Sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 on the quality and standards of provision that is registered on the Early Years Register. The registered person must ensure that this provision complies with the statutory framework for children’s learning, development and care, known as the Early Years Foundation Stage.

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Setting details

Unique reference number 251782 Local authority Suffolk Inspection number 894963

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Type of provision

Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 11 Total number of places 54 Number of children on roll 160 Name of provider Susan Spaulding and Penelope Conway Date of previous inspection 09/02/2009 Telephone number 01394 276005

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Type of provision

set out in the guidance ‘raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted', which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk. If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk.

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Type of provision

For the purposes of this inspection the following definitions apply:

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Type of provision

Full-time provision is that which operates for more than three hours. These are usually known as nurseries, nursery schools and pre-schools and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage. They are registered on the Early Years Register and pay the higher fee for registration.

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Type of provision

Sessional provision operates for more than two hours but does not exceed three hours in any one day. These are usually known as pre-schools, kindergartens or nursery schools and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage. They are registered on the Early Years Register and pay the lower fee for registration.

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Type of provision

Childminders care for one or more children where individual children attend for a period of more than two hours in any one day. They operate from domestic premises that are usually their own home. They are registered on the Early Years Register and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage.

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Type of provision

Out of school provision may be sessional or full-time provision and is delivered before or after school and/or in the summer holidays. They are registered on the Early Years Register and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage. Where children receive their Early Years Foundation Stage in school these providers do not have to deliver the learning and development requirements in full but should complement the experiences children receive in school. 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,

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Type of provision

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Type of provision

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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