La Petite Academy Ltd

La Petite Academy Ltd 10-12 Highfield Road, Littleover, Derby, Derbyshire, DE23 1DG

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 23/04/2013 06/12/2010

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early years provision

This inspection: 1 Previous inspection: 1 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

 Children make excellent progress in their learning and development because they are excited and motivated by the wide range of fun and stimulating activities available for them.  There are extremely rich, varied and imaginative experiences for children delivered by enthusiastic staff, who have expert knowledge of the areas of learning, and a clear understanding of how children learn through play.  Children feel safe and secure within a warm and welcoming environment. The highly effective key person system enables them to form secure attachments with the staff.  All of the children are treated with a great deal of respect, resulting in a harmonious, caring environment for everyone, where every child is valued, regardless of their gender, ability or need.  Staff show a very clear ambition to provide exceptionally good care and education for the children, and work extremely hard to achieve this. Processes for managing the

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This provision is outstanding

performance of staff and their professional development are used exceptionally well and staff are well qualified and confident in their roles.  Effective partnership with parents means there is united approach to meeting individual children's needs, extending their learning and helping them to develop relevant skills for future 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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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 held discussions with the owner and manager and spoke to several staff members, children and parents.  The inspector observed free play, focused activities, outside play and meal times.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector held a joint observation with the manager of the nursery about sensory development.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at samples of children's learning journey records, planning documentation, the nursery evaluation documents and a selection of policies.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector checked evidence of suitability and qualifications of staff working with the children.

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Information about the setting

La Petite Academy Limited opened in 1995 and is on the Early Years Register and on both the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. It operates from seven rooms in a single-storey building in Littleover, in Derby. There are three fully enclosed outdoor play areas. The nursery opens each week day from 7.30am to 6pm, all year round, closing only for bank holidays.

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Information about the setting

There are currently 185 children on roll, of these 162 are in the early years age range. Children are able to attend for a variety of sessions. The nursery provides funded early education for three- and four-year-old children. It supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children who speak English as an additional language.

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Information about the setting

The setting employs 23 members of staff, of whom, 20 hold a recognised early years qualification. There are three staff, who are trainees working towards an early years qualification. Three staff, including one of the directors and the nursery manager, hold the Early Years Professional Status and one member of staff holds a Foundation Degree in Early Years. The setting receives support from the local authority.

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

 expand further, the sensory experiences into all rooms in the nursery, paying particular attention to the older early years room, to increase opportunities for children to explore the world around them.

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who attend

Children are making excellent levels of progress in their learning and development in this vibrant and welcoming nursery. Children settle extremely well into the daily routines which are organised to create innovative and challenging opportunities for children to learn and develop. Children flourish because staff recognise the uniqueness of each child and support their learning and development extremely well in relation to their starting points. Inspirational teaching techniques, help children to be active, inquisitive learners. Children are highly motivated and fully engage in the balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities, which ensure that children are the primary instigators of their own learning. Assessment at all ages is precise, sharply focussed and informs planning very effectively. Planning is tailored to meet the children's individual learning needs and styles. As a result, staff are able to secure timely interventions and target support based on a comprehensive

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who attend

knowledge of the child. Consequently, they can quickly identify any gaps in children's learning and implement a robust process to complete the progress check at age two summary.

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who attend

All staff engage purposefully with children and make excellent use of open-ended questioning. Questions such as 'tell me about' and 'what do you think?' extend children's critical thinking, problem solving and language skills. One of example of this is when, children are listening to the story about a worm with super powers.'. They listen attentively and participate skilfully in answering questions, such as, 'What do you think the worm might do?' This triggers off many suggestions and ends with children using rhyming words extremely well. Furthermore, staff use actions and props inspiringly, resulting, in screams of delight as children anticipate the end of the story when the worm pops out. As a result, children's communication and language and early reading skills are promoted extremely well. Young children have fun singing repetitive popular rhymes together and playing musical instruments. These songs help children learn the similarities between

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who attend

Staff understand how children learn and develop through play and by following their own interests. They demonstrate this knowledge extremely well through the provision of designated areas, such as, a cosy inviting book corner or role play area. These offer children many opportunities to loose themselves in a world of imaginary and creative play. For example, a group of children are playing in the outside sand area and pretend to be builders using diggers, bricks and cement mixers, as they make houses. Children are inspired as they use the wonderful sensory room, as they relax listening to sounds, watch bubbles and light patterns and feel different materials, showing high levels of fascination and finding ways to solve problems. However, the opportunity to use sensory experiences to encourage children to explore and investigate the world around them is not always extended into the rooms the older early years children use. Young children have immense

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who attend

fun using 'shaving foam' they mix and marvel at how sticky their hands become when they squish the mixture between their fingers. They explore water and sand and use their creative skills to make pictures with glue, glitter and tissue paper. This also helps their physical development as children use a wide variety of tools to aid their fine movement skills extremely well. For example, they skilfully handle play dough tools, to roll and cut and accurately write their names and copy sentences using pencils well.

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who attend

Children benefit significantly from the large and excitingly resourced garden. Both staff and children enthusiastically use it as often as possible throughout the day. They have opportunities to, extend their physical skills. Children climb, balance and park their cars in 'numbered bays'. They explore and investigate the sensory garden; digging in the soil, planting bulbs, looking at spiders and smelling the herbs in the sensory area. Children extend their mathematical skills as their recognise shapes in the garden. They fill and empty containers and count bricks they have used to make a tower. Staff thoroughly, extend this area of learning extremely well, as they plan activities, such as, measuring the length of the sunflower seeds and sorting objects by size and colour. Such activities contribute significantly to providing children with the skills, attitudes and dispositions they need to prepare them for school.

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who attend

Babies and young children become involved in their play. They explore, investigate and find out about things in their environment. They demonstrate great enthusiasm as they lift lids of specially designed containers to reveal the contents underneath. They enjoy the vast amount of cause and effect toys and children continually show confidence as they press buttons on and off to make musical activity centre work. Older early years children use the computer very skilfully as they negotiate how to use the mouse to play letter sound and matching games. These activities help to develop children's information communication technology skills.

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who attend

Staff have an exceptional knowledge of each child's backgrounds and needs. Excellent liaison and communication with parents ensures every child receives high levels of support at an early stage. This means that those children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are catered for extremely well. Where appropriate, resources or funding are sought, along with support from other professionals. This early intervention enables children and their families to access tailored guidance in the best interests of the child. Those children who speak English as an additional language are wholly included. There are very good processes in place to support these children. For example, there are duel words for labels in place, pictorial routines on display and individual books portraying children's own language. As a result, this enables children to use their home language more frequently.

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who attend

Parents are very involved in their children's learning and staff provide opportunities for parents to extend their children's learning at home. For example, staff make suggestions in the newsletters about the activities the children could do, to further support their learning. These might include for instance, finding different shapes around the home to help develop their early mathematical skills or taking home puppets to extend their language skills.

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

Staff's warm and attentive care helps babies and young children feel extremely at ease. Children are settled and relaxed; confidently approaching adults for support or conversation. This confidence stems from an extremely effective key person process, in which each family and child has a special person who gets to know them very well. This ensures that every child's unique needs are always well met. Staff are able to recognise when babies need a drink, feel unwell or would like to try something new as they use sign language to communicate their needs and talk to each other. Effective information sharing processes have been developed by the nursery, which includes very effective hand over times with parents or carers. This is particularity successful, as staff write down information that parents provide about home. Further, care plans for babies and young children are detailed and created in consultation with the key person, the child's parents

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

and any advice from other support agencies.

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

All of the children are treated with a great deal of respect. This results in a harmonious, caring environment for everyone, where every child is valued, regardless of their gender, ability or need. Children learn the importance of using excellent manners, behaving with consideration towards each other and about diversity in the wider social world. Children demonstrate exceptionally positive behaviour and high levels of self-control. Children from different ethnic backgrounds play and learn in harmony together. Attachments between children and staff are warm and caring. Children seek out staff to share in their achievements and join in their games.

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

Healthy, active ways of life are extensively promoted. Menus are prepared to encourage the children to develop positive taste for a healthy diet. The nursery's owner demonstrates a tremendous commitment to providing children with the very best meals. Lunches are cooked daily from locally sourced produce and reflect the backgrounds of the children who attend. Nutritional content is monitored closely to ensure that children are not only enjoying the choices, but that they are low in salt and meet the nutritional recommendations for the different age groups. A healthy eating initiative is well promoted in the nursery. Children quickly develop a thorough and secure understanding of the hygiene routines which support their health and attend to their own hygiene needs independently. Children explain to staff that they 'need to wash their hands because germs can make us poorly!' Children develop extremely well self-help skills. This is clearly

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

demonstrated as they pour their own drinks and serve their food very effectively at snack and meal times. Children very confidently move around between inside and outdoors with absolute freedom, so fresh air and exercise are integral to their daily routine. Children learn about taking risks and keeping themselves safe, because staff support and supervise, them to explore, test their physical capabilities and become resilient. They learn about road safety as they walk around in the community and how to keep themselves safe in an emergency, as they participate in regular fire drills. Children are extremely confident and competent in communicating their thoughts and show a mature response to taking responsibility about their own and others' safety.

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

A high level of care and attention is placed on transitions within the setting and for those children moving onto school. Children progressing through the nursery have visits to their new room enabling them to gradually become familiar with their new environment. Staff create special photograph books for them to read about staff and new friends in the next rooms, helping promote a strong sense of security. Furniture, equipment and resources are of high quality and suitable for the ages of children to support their learning and development. Children's high levels of achievements are clearly attributed to excellent use of resources, including highly effective deployment of staff. Children clearly benefit and thrive as a result of the setting they are in. The owner is taking well-considered steps to ensure resources and the environment are fully sustainable.

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provision

Children's care, welfare and learning are extremely well enhanced by the highly effective way in which the nursery evaluates all that they do. Systems for the appointment of new staff are robust. Recruitment and vetting procedures support the nursery's commitment to safeguarding. There are clear procedures for ensuring the suitability of those who work at the nursery, so that only suitable adults work with the children. All mandatory documentation for the safe management of the nursery is in place, and is accurately maintained. All staff have attended safeguarding training and are confident of the appropriate procedures to follow in the event of concerns about children, or an allegation against a staff member.

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provision

Exceptional leadership and management, along with highly effective team working, result in a positive, inspiring environment, clearly aimed at supporting children to achieve their full potential. The nursery owner and those who take on a senior role have a very calm but confident approach to the work that they do. They are exceptionally successful in inspiring the staff team to strive for excellence. The morale of the staff is very good and they have high expectations and ambitious plans to ensure continued improvement for the nursery. Processes for managing the performance of staff and their professional development are used exceptionally well. A designated member of the staff team is assigned to make weekly observations on teaching within the nursery. Staff embrace this as a basis for personal development, which has in turn led to a passion for improvement and high standards of teaching across the nursery. Staff undertake regular training, either

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provision

in-house or through recognised courses. This increases their knowledge base and extends their practice skills to enhance the learning for children even further.

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provision

Rigorous monitoring and self-challenge enable the nursery staff to realistically target plans for the future. These include all areas of the nursery from checking how often accidents or incidents occur and establishing triggers to ongoing appraisals and the continuing professional development of staff. Excellent tracker systems are in place with regard to monitoring the progress children make within the Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. This attention to detail makes sure that the provision and the children continue to make exceptionally good progress.

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provision

Extensive and varied communication systems effectively offer all parents an opportunity to make important decisions about the nursery. Highly effective partnership working ensures that every child's unique needs are well supported. Parents are provided with a wealth of information about the nursery. They are informed of events through regular newsletters and parent initiatives, together with daily hand over chats. Discussion with parents highlights how extremely happy they are with the care their children receive. They have noticed very positive changes in their children's confidence, learning and physical abilities.

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provision

A systematic and rigorous evaluation procedure is in place, that includes all staff, parents and children's views. Annual questionnaires enable parents to make comment in a more formal way and their views are valued and considered. The parents' skills are utilised and their ideas harnessed as part of the ongoing development plans, which are regularly reviewed. As well as parents being involved in practical matters, they are invited into the nursery to share their interest and experiences. For example, to enjoy 'Special Event Days', for example 'Space Day' and social events, such as, 'The Big Bike Ride' for the NSPCC. Innovative partnerships with the local health authority and children's centres in the area offer additional services to parents and the local community.

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The Childcare Register

The requirements for the compulsory part of the Childcare Register are Met The requirements for the voluntary part of the Childcare Register are Met

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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 206109 Local authority Derby, City of Inspection number 909351

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Type of provision

Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 17 Total number of places 64 Number of children on roll 185 Name of provider La Petite Academy Ltd Date of previous inspection 06/12/2010 Telephone number 01332 774413

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Type of provision

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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