Poppet's Pre-School

Poppet's Pre-School Dinton Field, Dinton Field, KINGSTON UPON THAMES, Surrey, KT2 5TY

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 19/03/2013 Not Applicable

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early years provision

This inspection: 2 Previous inspection: Not Applicable 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 2 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 2

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This provision is good

 Children and parents have secure and trusting relationships with staff, particularly their allocated key person.  The setting works closely and effectively with children's other early years providers, and child development professionals, to support children's learning journey and their transition to either nursery school or school.  Children are inspired and motivated to engage in creative play and learning. This is because staff plan activities and topics that link with children's interests in exciting ways.  Children have access to a good range of equipment, tools and activities to enable them to develop independent practical skills. Children are interested in books and are keen to practise writing for a purpose.  Leadership and staff make very good use of self-evaluation to identify ways to continually improve practice in all areas.

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It is not yet outstanding because

 Children are very interested in certain topics, for example, space. However, staff do not make best use of these to involve parents in children's learning at home and to encourage children's learning across all areas.

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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

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Information about this inspection

 scheduled more frequently where Ofsted identifies a need to do so, for example where provision was previously judged 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 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  scheduled at the completion of an investigation into failure to comply with the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed children's play and learning in the preschool room and in the garden.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector held discussions with the provider and preschool manager during the inspection.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector undertook a joint observation with the provider of a group of children engaged in messy play.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector sampled a range of documents including those relating to safeguarding, children's progress and development, staffing records and the settings' self-evaluation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector spoke to a number of parents during the inspection and read a number of written parent testimonials to take account of their views.

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Information about the setting

Poppets Pre-school is one of two privately owned pre-schools. The setting was first registered in 2009and re-registered in 2012 when the provider's business became a limited company. The pre-school operates from a pavilion building within the grounds of Dinton Fields which is next door to St Agatha's Catholic Primary School. The pre-school provides morning sessions to children age three to five years and afternoon sessions for those aged from two, Monday to Friday, term time only. Morning sessions run from 9.10am until 12.10pm. A lunch club runs between 12.10pm and 12.40pm. Afternoon sessions run between 12.40pm and 3.40pm. The provider employs a manager, deputy and three other early years practitioners. The manager, deputy and one member of staff hold level 3 qualifications. Two members of staff have a level 2 qualification and are working towards achieving level 3. The provider has a BA Hons degree in early years. The pre-school

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Information about the setting

receives support from the local authority early years advisory team.

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Information about the setting

The pre-school is registered on the Early Years Register. There are currently 59 children on roll in the early years age range. The pre-school cares for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children who are learning and speak English as an additional language. The pre-school receives nursery education funding for children age two, three and four years.

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

 develop the use of topics further to support children's progress and development in all areas of learning, for example, by helping children to use the computer to find out information and by talking about shape and size, and involve parents in continuing this learning at home.

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who attend

Children are very well motivated and show a keen interest in learning through play. Staff use topics to guide activity planning. Although this style of planning is in the early stages it is becoming a key strength of the setting. Most notable is the interest being shown by boys in books and early writing, which staff had previously identified as a gap in the success of their planning. At the time of the inspection the topic was 'Space'. Boys are enthralled by stories about aliens who wear underpants and teddy bears that go on adventures into space. As a result they are keen to make aliens out of play dough, draw them and enthusiastically copy the captions. Staff join in children's play, skilfully prompting them to think of ideas to extend their play and learning, for example, to consider what food and equipment to take on a trip to space. Children use their imaginations well to make the 'food' from materials such as foil and wooden bricks. Staff

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who attend

encourage children's counting skills in fun ways. For example, they suggest children countdown backwards before taking off on a trip to space in the cardboard rocket. However, children's understanding of shape and size is less well supported, for example, staff do not encourage the children to talk about the shapes used to make the rocket. Opportunities to teach children how to use the computer as an information resource are also not exploited. Children absorb themselves in creative play, such as dark jelly and black sand, for lengthy periods. Children confidently experiment with ideas because they know that this is allowed and admired by staff. For example, they add black sand to jelly which changes the texture and is no longer so nice 'to eat'.

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who attend

Staff keep parents well informed about children's individual progress and development and involve parents in the assessment processes. For example, parents are fully involved in completing the progress check for two-year-old children. For example, staff find out how well children communicate in their first language so that they can judge how well children learn English. However, parental involvement in children's learning is not fully established. Although parents are asked to come in to share their culture, knowledge and skills, such as to help plan Chinese New Year celebrations, they know little about the weekly topic planning. This means, that parents do not have the opportunity to continue children's learning at home using related stories and activities. Staff work very effectively in partnership with all the other settings children attend, including schools. Overall staff provide a good quality play and learning environment. Assessment of children's progress is

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who attend

generally very accurate and all children make good progress overall. Staff are successful in identifying, targeting and closing any gaps in achievement to prepare children well for school.

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

Children are allocated to a key member of staff with whom they quickly develop a secure emotional attachment. Children also form close attachments to each other and 'Poppet', the nursery rabbit that they help to care for. Children have opportunities to spend time with their key person in small group activities and, when the time comes, the key person helps to prepare them for starting school. For example, staff plan visits to the school and teachers visit the pre-school.

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

Squabbles are rare because children are too busy having fun. Play and learning resources are in plentiful supply and of high quality. Children move freely around the indoors, initiating and directing their own play. Staff report on a marked improvement in the behaviour of boys since the introduction of the topic based approach to planning. Children demonstrate frequent acts of kindness towards each other, for instance a boy offers a girl a spoon to enable her to join in jelly play. Staff plan activities to encourage children to build relationships with each other and to work together as a team to solve practical problems, such as how to join sticks and material together to make a cave. Staff make good use of the 'WOW' board to acknowledge children's efforts and achievements. Parents record children's home 'WOW' moments on stars and children bring these in to share with their friends during circle time. Staff use words such as 'genius' to praise children for their

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

creative ideas, for example, when they use dough to join wooden bricks together as an alternative to balancing them.

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

Children are very well supported to develop independent self-care skills in preparation for starting school. Children use metal children's knives and miniature chopping boards to learn how to cut their own fruit safely. The pre-school operates a cafe style snack system where children choose when they want to take a break. Staff make good use of this to encourage children's social interaction, share news and talk about healthy food. The pre- school garden is an exciting place to be. It provides wonderful opportunities for children to develop their physical skills and learn in different ways on a bigger scale than indoors. At outdoor play times, children play on two wheeled bikes with stabilizers and use giant chalks to create elaborate patterns, numbers and letters on the patio. Children are as confident in trying out new ideas outside as they are inside and they learn how to take risks while keeping themselves safe. For example, they run down the steeped grass slope

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

and come down the slide backwards. Children enjoy acting out well known stories, growing, den-making and building in the 'forest' and the tepees. Children learn how to carry real bricks safely by holding one at a time against their tummies and walking carefully. They make their own assault courses using crates, planks and stepping stones made from tree stumps.

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provision

Leaders and managers are strong and effective in motivating and enthusing staff and in driving improvement. There are rigorous recruitment and vetting procedures in place to help to ensure staff are suitable to work with the children. Some staff have completed advanced training in child protection and children's welfare is closely monitored by their key person who understands their responsibilities well. Managers carry out thorough risk assessments to minimise the risks to children. All records and documentation required for the safe and efficient management of the pre-school are in place and well maintained.

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provision

Staff receive regular one-to-one supervision from the manager and provider. Appraisals are used successfully to identify and target any professional development needs. All staff complete first aid, safeguarding, behaviour management and health and safety training. Staff are very well supported to develop the skills and knowledge to take on designated roles, such as Special Educational Needs Coordinator, and to achieve higher level qualifications. Since registration leadership has focussed on improving the planning so that every child has an individually tailored play, learning and development plan. Leaders are working closely with the local authority early years advisors to further improve their processes for tracking and assessing children's progress towards the early learning goals. The setting is committed to the local authority Quality In Learning and Teaching (QuILT) self-evaluation process which provides challenging and rigorous self-assessment criteria.

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provision

The provider r demonstrates good awareness of the pre-school's strengths and weaknesses. She has focussed improvement on developing staff confidence and skills to support child-led learning.

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provision

Since registration the team has established highly effective partnerships with all external agencies involved with the children and they continue to strengthen their partnership with parents. The provider and manager mentor staff to develop the quality of teaching, which is rapidly improving and already very successful. Future plans include enabling children to move freely between indoors and outdoors, training staff to deliver the Every Child A Talker (ECAT) programme to support children's communication and language, building staff confidence in using information and communication technology and introducing outings to support children's understanding of the world.

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provision

Parents praise the quality of teaching practice and the well-resourced and presented environment. They describe how well children's personal, social and emotional needs are supported, particularly during the settling in period. Those that attend the parent consultation appointments talk knowledgably about their child's progress and development. Parents are provided with a termly newsletter. However, this informs them mainly of operational policies and procedures, rather than giving them ideas for supporting children's learning through topic work at home. The topic of the week is detailed on a blackboard, but this is not very prominent and not all parents read it. Overall, this is a rapidly improving pre-school with strong capacity to maintain continuous improvement.

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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 action. 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 EY452871 Local authority Kingston upon Thames Inspection number 884825 Type of provision Sessional provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 2 - 5 Total number of places 26 Number of children on roll 59 Name of provider Poppet's Childcare Ltd Date of previous inspection not applicable Telephone number 07519526681

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Setting details

set out in the guidance ‘Complaints procedure: 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, which are usually the childminder’s 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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