Elm Lane Day Nursery

Elm Lane Day Nursery 24 / 26 Church Street, DAGENHAM, Essex, RM10 9UR

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 15/05/2013 22/02/2013

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early years provision

This inspection: 4 Previous inspection: 4 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

 Risk assessments are ineffective and staff lack understanding of minimising risks. This has resulted in several concerns regarding the safety of children.  Staff do not have a clear enough understanding of safeguarding procedures and as a result, children's safety cannot be assured.  The nursery environment is cluttered and untidy; therefore, children are not interested or motivated to become active learners.  Staff interaction with the children is poor; they do not effectively support children's learning as they play. Systems for monitoring staff practice are not fully effective.  Some staff lack understanding of the prime and specific areas of learning. This means that they do not consistently plan engaging learning experiences to support all children's individual progression towards the early learning goals.  Not all children feel safe and settled in the nursery and have yet to form positive

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This provision is inadequate

relationships with the staff to help ensure every child's care is tailored to meet their individual needs.

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It has the following strengths

 Children generally behave well, as staff provide praise and encouragement.  Children experience physical play in the outside play environment in all weathers.

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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 sampled children's assessment records, planning documentation, evidence of staff suitability and a range of other documentation.  The inspector had meetings with the owner to look at documentation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector spoke with the staff working in the nursery and recorded observations of their interactions with children.  The inspector conducted observations with the local authority worker.

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Information about the setting

Elm Lane Day Nursery opened in 2007 and operates from two large shop units that form part of a small shopping parade. The nursery is situated in a residential area in Dagenham, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. There is an enclosed garden for outside play.

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Information about the setting

The nursery serves the local community and is open each weekday between 7am to 6pm, all year round. The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register and the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. There are currently 27 children aged from eight months to five years on roll, some in part-time places. There are 10 members of staff, all of whom hold early years qualifications to at least level 2.

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enforcement action:

We will issue a Welfare Requirements Notice with a timescale for completion of 15 July 2013 requiring the provider to: - ensure all staff understand and adhere to the nursery's safeguarding polices and procedures, including being alert and taking appropriate action in relation to any accidents, incidents or injuries that occur when children are not in the nursery, to fully protect children - develop effective methods of risk assessment in order to minimise the risks of children accessing inappropriate areas of the nursery - ensure that all staff make every child feel safe and secure and their individual needs are met.

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must:

 ensure staff are able to ignite children's curiosity and enthusiasm for learning and are able to build their capacity to learn and form relationships

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must:

 ensure staff respond to each child's emerging needs and interests, guiding their development through warm positive interaction

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must:

 ensure each area of learning and development is implemented through planned purposeful play and through a mixture of adult-led and child-initiated activity with particular reference to the organisation of resources.

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who attend

Few children are making the progress they should because staff do not support their learning effectively. As a result, the setting is not meeting the learning and development requirements. Most staff have a limited knowledge of how children learn or how to support children's learning through asking good quality open-ended questions. They rarely interact with the children, preferring to sit and watch and let the children come to them. This means staff do not deliver the areas of learning effectively to support children to make good progress towards the early learning goals. The local authority has been working closely with the nursery to make improvements. They have introduced a new system of observations and assessments, which the staff are beginning to use to identify children's progress. Planning shows how children's next steps will be incorporated into activities. However, this is not happening in reality, as staff are mostly inexperienced and

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who attend

lack confidence. Therefore, most children are missing out on valuable early years learning experiences and, as a result, the setting is not meeting children's individual learning and developmental needs.

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who attend

Some children are confident. They show very active imaginations as they act out doctors and nurses in the role play baby clinic. They dress and undress the dolls and chat about their experiences when they had to be taken to hospital. These children show concentration as they undo a packet containing a bandage and roll it up into a ball to bandage the dolls arm. However, staff do not attempt to prevent other children from taking over the play space. These children dominate the play materials, making the dolls sticky and wet with cleansing gel which they pretend is baby oil. As a result of staff not intervening, not all children have uninterrupted time to play and explore. Registration time is used to help children learn about the weather and to greet each child by name. Children get excited as they take it in turns to bang the box to see what is inside. Each child chooses an item that interests them from the contents of the box, choosing to sing a song

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who attend

or act out an action rhyme. The majority of the children choose the weather and they sing a weather song together, while the member of staff acts out weather conditions. They do this by spraying water to imitate rain and dusting talcum powder to imitate snow. However, this gets the children over excited and they start to push each other to get to the front. Consequently, children's shared learning is not fully supported and children are over stimulated; therefore their learning experiences are reduced. The outside play area is more of a success and the children spend a lot of their time outside. They giggle together on the climbing frame and encourage their friends to join them. Babies and toddlers enjoy the seesaw and sand tray, digging holes in the sand and laughing as the seesaw goes up and down. These activities encourage children's confidence and understanding of taking supervised risks, as they play and explore while steadily improving their growing physical

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who attend

The baby room is a more organised place to be, with activities set out at children's level so that they can explore and investigate. Staff offer children individual support as they choose a fabric book that makes sounds. They look to the staff for support or a cuddle which is readily available. The staff know the children well and are able to tune into their current interests and start to build on what they can do by adding or changing resources.

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who attend

Parents share information about children's learning and development when children first attend the nursery. This information serves as a starting point for the children's learning, alongside the key person's initial observations. A start has been made on completing the progress checks for two-year-olds and there are plans to share these with parents.

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

Children's behaviour is satisfactory. The staff team have recently attended behaviour management training and use positive reinforcement to help children understand what is acceptable. The children glow in the praise and encouragement from staff. Children encourage their friends to behave acceptably, for example, by telling them not to run, but to walk as it is dangerous to run. The environment is generally child friendly, with colourful displays and posters to engage children's thoughts. The rooms are divided into learning zones, with equipment and furniture to encourage specific learning opportunities. However, the learning environment is cluttered. There are too many resources laid out so children are not interested and walk past. As a result, children are not consistently challenged and, therefore, are not able to make good progress in their learning. In addition, some resources are not in good

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

condition. For example, puzzles have pieces missing, paint pots are dirty and pencils are not sharpened for children's use. There is also cotton wool and used packets from the children's play in the role play area left on the floor for long periods. This demonstrates staff do not show pride and respect for the learning environment and, therefore, do not provide children with good role models.

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

A rolling snack time means that children can help themselves to a snack when they are hungry, developing their independence. Children are starting to understand about healthy living as they know they cannot eat until they have washed their hands. They sit with the staff member who talks to them about healthy eating and encourages them to butter their own crackers and pour their own drinks. However, the milk is presented in a large four pint bottle and children are unable to manage it as it is too heavy and cumbersome. This has a negative effect on children's developing independence as they are unable to manage this task. Menus are healthy and varied, taking into account children's dietary and cultural needs appropriately. Children use plates that are divided into various sections for the different parts of the meal. When the main meal has been served and eaten, staff use the same plate to serve the dessert. However, if children have to go off to school or it is

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

nearly time to leave the setting, the food is all served out at once on the same sectioned plate. As a result, children do not eat as well as they could because they are keen to eat their dessert.

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

Staff help children to keep themselves safe as procedures for emergency evacuation are practised once a month. Staff make notes on possible improvements to these procedures and the time taken to help increase children's safety. Most of the staff have current first aid qualifications. Therefore they are able to act appropriately should a child have an accident while in the nursery. The nursery offers a 'take the children to school' arrangement, where staff take and collect children from school during the day. The driver has her driving licence on file, but the insurance for the car is not stored on site. This prevents this documentation from being produced should there be an accident involving the car while transporting the school-age children.

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

Although there is a key person system in place, it is not well embedded. As a result, not all children show that they feel safe and develop close relationships. Some children have difficulty separating from their parents when they arrive and take a time to settle. Some children wander around looking for support or follow their key person, looking for individual attention. This is further demonstrated as one child is reluctant to take off their coat and keeps it on for most of the session. After lots of encouragement, the child removes the coat, but quickly puts it back on when staff walk away.

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provision

Staff's understanding of meeting the safeguarding and welfare requirements is not secure. Not all staff fully understand and adhere to the nursery's safeguarding policy and procedures as they are not fully aware of the importance of following up any incidents that happen outside the setting. As a result, children may be placed at risk. Staff conduct risk assessments and the building is seen to be generally safe and secure. Entrance to the nursery is only allowed to people known to the nursery. In addition, playrooms can only be entered when accompanied by a member of staff. Therefore, children are suitably protected from people unknown to the staff. However, not all risks and hazards to children are identified and removed or minimised. For example, on the day of the inspection, one of the cots in the baby room was damaged but still remained in the sleep room. In addition, the entrance to the staff room was left open, which means babies and toddlers

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provision

could enter the room and access staff bags and personal belongings. These hazards potentially compromise young children's safety. Although the nursery has included the use of mobile phones in the safeguarding policy, the staff in the baby room still have easy access to them. As a result, children's safety cannot be fully assured.

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provision

Following a complaint in March 2013 regarding behaviour management of children and induction and training of students, six actions were set in order to ensure that every child's care is tailored to meet their individual needs. These actions related to the deployment of staff; staff's understanding and the implementation of policies and procedures relating to medication and behaviour management; providing information for parents about incidents relating to behaviour management; response to inappropriate behaviour displayed by adults working with the children and the maintenance of records relating to physical intervention. A written response was received to confirm these actions had been met.

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provision

Current systems for monitoring the way the staff work are not fully effective; therefore some weaknesses in practice have mainly gone unnoticed. The manager is very new to the setting and is working closely with the local authority to bring about the required improvements. The local authority development workers make regular visits to the nursery and have put in place a comprehensive action plan to help bring about change. Some impact is already showing; for example, there are improvements in how staff manage children's behaviour. There are also positive changes to the planning and assessment systems and to the recruitment of staff.

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provision

In addition, at the previous inspection, there were issues regarding the suitability of staff. These included their qualifications, the maintaining of staff ratios and whether a member of staff with a valid first aid certificate was always present when children were being caring for. Staff suitability is now checked prior to employment, all staff hold relevant childcare qualifications to at least level 2, staff ratios are maintained and most staff have first aid training. Although these changes demonstrate a capacity for improvement, the nursery still has some areas of practice to address to improve the outcomes for children and their families.

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provision

Partnerships with external agencies are established. There are reasonable arrangements in place to support children who may need additional support. The nursery is developing suitable partnerships with the schools to ease the move between the nursery and school. Partnerships with parents are appropriate. Parents are welcomed by their first name and staff ask about their child's time away from the nursery. Staff spend time getting to know the child before they start with a settling-in programme, built around the child and the individual families. This process helps staff identify children's starting points and capabilities and take the first steps towards meeting their individual needs.

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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 all necessary measures are taken to minimise any identified risks to children throughout the setting (compulsory part of the Childcare Register).  ensure that all necessary measures are taken to minimise any identified risks to children throughout the setting (voluntary part of the Childcare Register).

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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 EY363213 Local authority Barking & Dagenham Inspection number 914157 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 8 Total number of places 35 Number of children on roll 36 Name of provider Grace Funke Akinnugba Date of previous inspection 22/02/2013 Telephone number 07944 453 341

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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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