Play Away Day Nurseries Ltd

Play Away Day Nurseries Ltd 43 High Street, Totton, Southampton, Hampshire, SO40 9HL

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 08/04/2013 07/07/2009

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early years provision

This inspection: 1 Previous inspection: 3 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 1 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 1

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This provision is outstanding

 Excellent observation, tracking and assessment systems are exceptionally well used by the staff team to ensure all children are highly challenged and reach their full potential.  The staff demonstrate an excellent understanding of child development and use this information very effectively to challenge and stimulate the children.  High-quality professional supervision is provided to the staff ensuring outcomes for the children and families are greatly improved.  Children's individual needs are very quickly identified and are exceptionally well met through highly effective partnerships with parents, other providers and outside agencies.  Children are extremely well motivated and demonstrate that they are active learners who are highly engaged and creative while playing and exploring showing excellent characteristics of effective learning.

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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 inspectors observed activities in all the children's rooms and the outside learning environment.

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Inspection activities

 The lead inspector conducted a joint observation with the registered provider of the provision within the pre-school room.

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Inspection activities

 The lead inspector held a meeting with the manager and the registered provider of the provision.

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Inspection activities

 The inspectors looked at children's assessment records and planning documentation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspectors took account of the views of parents and carers spoken to on the day and from information included in the setting's own parent survey.

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Information about the setting

Play Away Day Nurseries Ltd in Totton, Hampshire is one of three nurseries. It registered in 2003. The nursery is privately owned and managed. It operates from a purpose-built two storey building in the centre of Totton and serves the local and wider communities. There are enclosed outdoor play areas and disabled access throughout the ground floor.

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Information about the setting

The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register. There are currently 175 children on roll in the early years age range. The nursery is open each weekday from 7.30am until 6.30pm for 51 weeks a year. Children attend for a variety of sessions.

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Information about the setting

There are 24 members of staff working with the children. The owner, senior manager and manager all have an early years professional qualification. One member of staff has a level 5 qualification and three have level 4. All other staff have a level 3 qualification except one who has level 2. The setting employs an administrator, a full-time cook, a kitchen assistant and two lunchtime supervisors. It is a member of the National Day Nurseries Association and the Pre-school Learning Alliance. The nursery supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children who speak English as an additional language.

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

 enhance all children's experiences of outdoor play by enabling greater opportunities for the older children to choose where they play at all times throughout the session.

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who attend

Children are thriving and achieving their full potential under the care of the extremely knowledgeable and inspirational staff team. All staff have an extremely good understanding about how children develop and learn. They have an excellent awareness of each child's care and learning needs, ensuring all children make exceptional progress. The high-quality assessment system enables staff to plan imaginative, rich and stimulating experiences for all the children. For example, staff demonstrate a very secure understanding of the pre-school children's development, giving them extensive opportunities for them to be wholly involved and contribute their own ideas. They use the information obtained from the children to provide them with a wide range of resources so that they can put their ideas into action. For example, children create a large castle for their role play area using large pieces of cardboard and a wide selection of paints. Young

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who attend

children are provided with extensive opportunities to explore their external world through high-quality sensory experiences. Staff enable children to explore a wide variety of wooden blocks within extremely well-organised treasure baskets. They show fascination on their faces as they explore the blocks with their hands and with their mouths. Staff are highly qualified and skilfully use these learning experiences to talk to the young children about the names of the blocks they explore. This excellent interaction exposes young children to new language and develops their early understanding of communication.

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who attend

Children relish opportunities to be fully involved in preparing the room and take ownership for their environment. They have a wonderful time as they make marks and form letters to create the lists of the things they require to design their inside beach area. Staff use high- quality teaching methods to support and challenge children's learning as they help children to sound out and make marks for the different letters. Lots of praise and encouragement is given for children's emergent writing which in turn greatly boosts children's self-esteem and confidence, preparing children very well for school.

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who attend

Staff have excellent skills in helping children to complete tasks for themselves by providing them in advance with the resources they need. For example, children immensely enjoy transporting the sand and demonstrate excellent team working skills as they assist each other with the pulling and pushing of the wheeled trolley. Children are provided with an extensive range of resources to explore and investigate within the sand area. Staff interact skilfully posing high-quality open-ended questions to challenge children's thinking and learning. For example, children are actively encouraged by the staff to use their critical thinking to work out how much sand they need on each side of the balancing scales. Children are provided with lots of space and time to think about and process the questions asked. They successfully predict that they need more sand on one side of the scales in order for the scales to balance. This demonstrates children are provided with excellent

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who attend

opportunities to develop their prediction and mathematical skills through active hands-on learning. These excellent learning opportunities prepare children exceptionally well for school and the future.

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who attend

Young children are extremely well supported by the excellent interaction of the staff who care for them. Staff effectively ask simple questions at the children's level to help extend children's learning and understanding. For example, children become very excited as they participate with a song and game about the parts of their bodies. Staff skilfully ask children 'can you find your nose?' and children are given lots of space and time to process the information and respond. Children are given huge amounts of praise as they giggle excitedly and successfully point to the appropriate parts of their bodies. This excellent learning opportunity helps babies and young children to recognise their different features and that they are separate and different from others.

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who attend

Parents are encouraged to be involved with their children's learning at the nursery through excellent daily verbal feedback and regular parents' meetings. Staff are extremely flexible, providing parents' consultations at different times to enable all parents to attend. They share very comprehensive information with parents about their children's learning and development and offer parents lots of opportunities to contribute their knowledge of their child. This ensures consistency is fully achieved and parents are able to continue their children's learning at home. Staff demonstrate an excellent understanding of the two-year- old assessment check and use their very detailed assessments of the children to conduct these. These are shared with parents extremely well enabling them to be fully involved with their child's learning.

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

An excellent key person system helps children to develop extremely strong emotional bonds and secure trusting relationships with a special adult. This superb relationship helps children to develop high levels of self-esteem and confidence, preparing them well for their next stages in learning. Staff in each room prepare extremely detailed handover sheets when a child is ready to move up to the next age group. This ensures staff obtain a shared understanding about the children and consistency is achieved in order to meet each child's individual needs.

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

Staff in the younger age rooms organise the environment exceptionally well to give young children extensive opportunities to develop their choice-making skills. For example, crawling and walking babies are able to take themselves off for a sleep if they wish. They have excellent opportunities to master climbing skills as they climb into the low level wicker baskets and settle themselves down for a sleep amongst the comfy cushions and blankets.

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

Older children play extremely happily alongside each other in their inside beach area and demonstrate excellent turn-taking skills as they share the resources. Staff interact exceptionally well with the children at their level, skilfully asking them why it is important to not throw the sand near each other's faces. Children are given lots of thinking time to respond and thoughtfully state, 'because it might go in their eyes'. Staff are extremely effective in supporting children's growing understanding of how to behave in order to keep themselves and those around them safe.

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

Children have their food freshly cooked for them by a well-qualified and experienced chef. They enjoy healthy nutritional meals and staff skilfully ask questions about the food to further extend the children's learning. For example, staff ask children why they think the different foods are good for them and children respond stating 'carrots are good because they make us strong'. Staff serve as excellent role models as they sit alongside the children, demonstrating how to hold their cutlery and how to eat their food politely. Children are provided with plenty of space and time to learn and master these new skills. Excellent interaction and encouragement from the staff help those who are struggling to obtain the confidence to try and cut their own food with their knife. Young children relish the opportunity to feed themselves as they use they own spoons and forks. This helps to enhance their coordination, preparing them extremely well for their next stages in

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

development. Children develop an excellent awareness of tooth-brushing routines and how these contribute to their good health. Staff have organised the environment extremely effectively as children look into the well-positioned mirrors as they independently clean their faces.

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

All children are provided with lots of opportunities to learn and explore outside. Older children experience the outside areas at certain times during the day and indicate to staff through visual pictures when they wish to do so. However, there is no natural 'free-flow' for them as there is for babies and young children under three years who are provided with excellent opportunities to go between the inside and outside areas during the session. They have extensive opportunities to be active and master new skills as they learn to pedal trikes and climb the steps of the low-level slides. Staff offer lots of encouragement while providing children with lots of opportunities and space to take safe risks under very close supervision.

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

Excellent partnerships have been developed between the nursery and the local schools. Teachers are invited to attend the setting to enable children to become familiar with the new faces in readiness for going to school. Staff have sought excellent information about the schools to enable them to provide children with resources such as books, photographs and uniforms. This high-quality organisation ensures children are extremely well prepared for school as they become very familiar with things related to the school they will attend.

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provision

The leadership and management of the nursery are inspirational. The management team works very effectively to ensure high-quality supervision is undertaken for the staff team. This excellent monitoring of staff ensures consistency is extremely well achieved across the nursery and the outcomes for the children are greatly improved. The registered provider is extremely committed and highly dedicated in maintaining the highest levels of achievement for the children and their families. She and the manager have worked exceptionally hard with the staff on a one-to-one basis to help staff improve their knowledge and practice relating to observations, tracking and planning. This results in an extremely confident staff team who all demonstrate an excellent understanding of how to help all children develop and progress.

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provision

The management team demonstrates an excellent understanding about ensuring extremely robust and secure recruitment and induction procedures are adhered to. These systems ensure the nursery is meeting its responsibilities with regards to the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Children are cared for by highly qualified and suitably vetted individuals.

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provision

The management team has actively sought the views of the staff, parents and children, collating these together exceptionally well to identify the nursery's strengths and areas for development. Staff are highly committed to continually improving the outcomes for the children and their families. They have positively acted on suggestions from questionnaires, such as implementing a yearly events calendar to provide parents with advanced warning.

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provision

Excellent partnerships have been developed with external agencies and parents to support those children with special education needs and/or disabilities or who speak English as an additional language. The staff are extremely dedicated in ensuring any strategies set are incorporated into the planning for each child. This working together ensures high levels of consistency are achieved and the needs of the children are very well met. Staff create high-quality resources to support children who speak English as an additional language. For example, they research key words for the children's home languages and create picture cards linked with the words. This offers further support to children's communication and language development. Partnerships with parents are exceptionally good. The setting have created an extremely attractive and welcoming library area so parents can choose books with their child to take home and share with them. Parents are

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provision

extremely well informed through detailed notice boards and regular comprehensive newsletters. Parents speak very highly of the nursery, stating it offers them and their child a very high level of service and care.

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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 EY275052 Local authority Hampshire Inspection number 908605 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 5 Total number of places 122 Number of children on roll 175 Name of provider Play Away Day Nurseries Ltd Date of previous inspection 07/07/2009 Telephone number 02380 862 169

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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

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk. 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. To receive regular email alerts about new publications, including survey reports and school inspection reports, please visit our website and go to ‘Subscribe’.

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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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