Busy Bees Day Nursery at Canterbury

Busy Bees at Canterbury Surestart Centre, Kingsmead Road, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7PH

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 23/07/2013 Not Applicable

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early years provision

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

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This provision is outstanding

 Careful and precise planning by key persons ensures each child's next steps in their learning and development are promoted extremely well.  There is an excellent range of resources that engage children of all ages and encourage their exploration skills.  Children have great fun accessing the wide range of learning experiences outside.  Children's progress through the nursery and the move to school are managed exceptionally well, supporting their wellbeing.  Staff engage particularly well with parents who routinely support children's learning with activities at home.

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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 activities in the playrooms and outside area.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector held a meeting with the manager of the nursery and carried out a joint observation.  The inspector looked at some children's records, including assessment.  The inspector took the views of parents into account.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector checked evidence of safeguarding practices, staff recruitment, ongoing professional development and self-evaluation processes.

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Information about the setting

Busy Bees at Canterbury registered in 2006. It runs on the site of the Riverside Children Centre, Canterbury, Kent and has very close links. It is one of 213 nurseries run by Busy Bees Limited. The nursery operates from four playrooms and there are enclosed outdoor play areas for all children. The nursery is open each weekday from 8am to 6pm, all year round except for bank holidays.

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Information about the setting

The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register and there are currently 129 childrenaged from six weeks on roll. The nursery supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language.

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Information about the setting

There are 35 members of staff, most of whom have early years qualifications; six are at level 6 and 21 at level 3. A member of staff has Early Years Professional Status. The nursery receives funding for the provision of free early education for children aged two, three and four years.

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

 enhance further the range of resources to positively reflect of the cultural background of every child attending.

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who attend

Staff provide excellent support to encourage and promote children's progress in their learning and development, across all areas of learning. They use their comprehensive assessments of children's achievements in planning the next steps in their learning. Staff ably enthuse and motivate children to take part in activities by taking children's interests and choices into account. Careful and precise monitoring of children's progress enables staff to quickly identify any achievement gaps and plan to help children overcome these. Staff are extremely well prepared for completing the required progress check reports for children when they are aged between two and three years. Staff are highly successful in engaging with parents. They significantly involve parents in supporting their child's learning in the nursery and at home. For example, parents have monthly ideas for activities to do at home that support their child's learning. Key persons encourage parents

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who attend

to share observations made at home. They invite parents in to share something of themselves, such as reading a story to children in another language other than English. Children's learning records are kept up to date and available for parents to take home or look at when they want. The excellent working in partnership with parents and families helps ensure the right support for individual children is in place. As a result, the staff are highly effective at preparing children for the next stage of their learning. Where this involves children moving to school there is excellent support available. For example, parents can borrow books about the school their child is due to attend. Activities with children enable them to express any concerns so they look forward to going.

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who attend

Promotion of children's communication and language development is excellent. Staff routinely ask questions of children that need more than a yes or no response and give time for them to think of their answer. This encourages children and gives them confidence to answer, with staff valuing what they say. Children eagerly use the outdoor areas, particularly with the older ones being able to decide if they want to play outside. The different areas create exciting experiences for children. For example, they listen to stories in the playhouse, play in the sand pit, help water plants or make mud pies. The encouragement for children to explore starts at an early age. The babies have ample space to develop their physical skills. With resources at low level, they make choices themselves as they engage in sensory play experiences. This could be exploring musical instruments or a range of changing textures in a large tray such as leaves, sand or chalks.

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who attend

The toddlers have an exciting discovery area with a broad range of different materials, textures and objects to investigate. Staff create boxes or bags for each child that contain items of individual interest and family photographs. These are used to encourage communication and language development as they share them together. This also gives those children positive self-esteem and an excellent sense of belonging.

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

Children settle extremely well, gaining a positive sense of belonging and well-being. This is because the key person system is well thought-out. Each key person has a 'buddy' member of staff who is able to support children when they are absent. The staff team are very nurturing and know their key children very well. The one to one time they have with their key child is exceptionally good at developing a strong bond and getting to know the child as an individual. The relationships gained are very beneficial as children move through the group rooms in the nursery. Staff manage these moves sensitively and fully involve parents. For example, parents can borrow a book about the next group room and share this with their child at home.

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

Staff value children's ideas and, as a result, children are very confident and motivated to learn. Children of all ages are able to make decisions about what to play with. Staff respect children's own needs for sleep. For example, having low sleep baskets in the babies' room means they can crawl into them when they want to. The effective emphasis on children's choices means they gain very good levels of independence. For example, the older children pour drinks, manage their own personal care or decide if they want to play indoors or outside. Children thoroughly enjoy the nutritious nursery cooked meals, with menus on display to inform parents. Some areas of the garden offer physical challenges to children as they enjoy a healthy lifestyle with play in the fresh air. From a very young age, children learn the importance of the need for personal hygiene. For example, staff support babies experience hand washing before eating and after a nappy change. Staff effectively

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

support children's growing understanding of keeping themselves and others safe as they play. Children practice fire evacuation drills and learn how to cross roads safely. Children behave extremely well and happily share resources with others.

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

The nursery provides a highly stimulating and welcoming environment to all children. The equipment, resources and furniture are of excellent quality and support children's development. For example, the sturdy low-level furniture helps babies who are beginning to pull themselves up, encouraging their physical development. Resources throughout the nursery, both indoors and outside, are plentiful, easily reached and actively encourage children to explore and investigate. There are resources that help children gain an awareness of diversity and the wider world. Overall, the nursery positively reflects children's cultural backgrounds and truly values home languages.

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provision

The safeguarding and welfare requirements are met extremely well. The premises are very secure and children's safety is given high priority. Each room carries out and records daily risk assessment checks to help ensure children's continuing safety as they explore and play. Comprehensive written policies and procedures clearly explain the nursery's responsibilities and practices to parents, staff and others. Staff take safeguarding very seriously and they all undertake appropriate training. This helps ensure staff have a secure awareness of possible child protection concerns and of the processes to follow. The comprehensive recruitment process helps ensure the employment of suitable staff. There is clear and detailed information evidencing that the appropriate checks are in place. New staff complete an in-depth induction that ensures they are fully aware of their role and responsibilities. High-quality supervisions, annual appraisals and regular monitoring by the

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provision

manager provide staff with secure support and opportunities for professional development, such as training. As a result, the staff are able to provide excellent care and learning experiences for the children.

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provision

The management and staff are extremely reflective about their practices. The self- evaluation processes are thorough and demonstrate the highly positive improvements made to children's progress in their learning since the last inspection. Each room has a diary where staff record and illustrate successful activities and events with children. This detail is also reflective, such as when staff make changes to the room layout to improve children's engagement. Development plans are continually evolving and there is an excellent capacity to sustain improvement. There is an extremely secure understanding of the learning and development requirements throughout the nursery. There is continual monitoring of children's achievements by key persons and overseen by the manager. This enables staff to easily identify and plan to narrow any gaps in children's learning. The manager is able to precisely monitor the progress of individuals or different groupings of

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provision

children to help ensure that their achievements are consistently on target or above. Parents have an exceptionally positive partnership with staff and this fully supports children's ongoing development. Parents appreciate the daily communication books, giving them informative detail about their child's day, particularly relating to their care needs. The management significantly encourage parents to share their views and thoughts through discussions and attendance at the regularly held Parent Partnership Group meetings. There are highly positive working relationships with other agencies and professionals. This is extremely beneficial in supporting those children who need additional support. Communication with other early years settings where children may attend is seen as important in providing consistency and promoting children's learning and development.

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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 EY333589 Local authority Kent Inspection number 927271 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 5 Total number of places 80 Number of children on roll 129 Name of provider Busy Bees Nurseries Limited Date of previous inspection not applicable Telephone number 01227 475556

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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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