Union Corner Pre-School

Union Corner Pre-School Union Corner Hall, Hawks Road, Hailsham, East Sussex, BN27 1ND

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 17/07/2013 08/04/2011

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early years provision

This inspection: 3 Previous inspection: 2 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 3 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 3

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This provision is satisfactory

 Children are happy, engage well in their play, and make satisfactory progress in their learning and development.  Children establish positive and friendly relationships with staff, who help them feel secure and comfortable within the pre-school.  Children stay safe, keep healthy and enjoy being able to move freely between inside and outdoor play environments.

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It is not yet good because

 The staff are not well deployed to effectively support children's learning and development and behaviour, and to offer them challenge as they learn through play.  Staff do not all have a good understanding of the procedures to follow if a safeguarding allegation is made against a member of staff.  The staff do not fully involve parents in their children's learning and development or in the evaluation of the quality of the pre-school provision.

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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 observed staff and their interaction with children indoors and outside in the garden.  The inspector spoke to children, staff and parents during the inspection.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector sampled a range of documentation including safeguarding policies and procedures, evidence of suitability of staff and the committee to work with children, children's registration and learning records and accident/incident records.  The inspector carried out a joint observation with the pre-school supervisor.

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Information about the setting

Union Corner Pre-School registered in 1982. It is run by a committee and operates as a registered charity. The pre-school operates from two rooms in Union Corner Hall, located next door to Hawks Road Primary School, in Hailsham, East Sussex. There are kitchen and toilet facilities and an outside play area and a wildlife garden. The pre-school serves families from the local community and beyond. The pre-school is registered on the Early Years Register and the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. The pre- school is open on a Monday from 9am to 3pm and Tuesday to Friday from 9am to 1pm, during term time only.

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Information about the setting

There are currently 38 children on roll in the early years age range. The pre-school gets funding for the provision of free early education to children aged three and four years and for some children aged two years. Children attend for a variety of sessions. The pre-school supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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Information about the setting

The pre-school employs seven members of staff. Of these, six work directly with the children and one member of staff deals with finance matters. Five staff hold appropriate early years qualifications.

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must:

 improve the deployment of staff and their purposeful engagement with children to more effectively support children's behaviour, learning and development

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must:

 increase staff's understanding of safeguarding procedures regarding allegations against staff.

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

 develop systems to seek the views of parents and involve them further in their children's learning.

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who attend

Children make steady progress in their learning and development. They play well independently, both inside and out in the garden, as they are able to make their own decisions about what they do. The staff plan a suitable range of activities to support children's development across all areas of learning. Children particularly enjoy water play as they act out cleaning windows with water and paintbrushes. Staff invite children to consider how they can clean the windows that are higher up, to encourage them to think critically. Children develop the water brush painting by putting their hands in water and pressing them on to a chalkboard to make water handprints. Other particularly popular activities include role play and make-believe cooking and serving food in the garden. These kind of activities build on children's current interests and so extend their learning in a purposeful way.

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who attend

Some staff engage well with the children, extend their learning and support them with good teaching. However, the quality of teaching overall is variable as some staff do not skilfully question children to improve their learning. They also busy themselves with housekeeping tasks such as tidying away instead of deploying themselves where they are most needed with the children. This has an impact on how well children learn and on their behaviour. At times, some children do not display kind attitudes towards each other and they squabble over toys. Some children also ignore requests from staff, such as to ride bicycles only on the concrete area, rather than the grass to keep themselves and others safe. Some children play well together, working cooperatively to carefully move a bowl of water without spilling it and sitting still on chairs to listen attentively to a story. At other times children experiment together with model cars they have made using plastic bricks.

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who attend

They show a secure understanding of number names and mathematics as they comment how their car is 100 horsepower and counting how fast it is going.

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who attend

The staff have a secure understanding of how to observe, assess and monitor children's progress towards the early learning goals. Children's learning journals are well maintained and provide an attractive record of children's individual achievements. Staff also complete useful transition forms for children when they are about to make the move to school. This provides the school, and parents, with useful information about each child. Parents receive information about their children's progress but the pre-school currently does not have good systems in place to fully involve them in their children's learning and development at home. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive appropriate support to promote their inclusion within the pre-school. Partnership working with external agencies enables specific support to be obtained to help meet children's needs and narrow potential achievement gaps.

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

The pre-school has a satisfactory key person in place to support children's feelings of belonging and well-being. Staff know the children well and understand what their current interests and needs are. They offer appropriate support to meet the children's needs, including regarding toileting. Children receive caring support regarding their personal care, for example by staff helping them change their clothes after getting wet following water play. The children follow appropriate hygiene practices, knowing they wash hands before eating snack. They get plenty of fresh air and physical exercise as they play outside a lot of the time. Children learn to climb, balance, ride wheeled toys and explore nature in their wildlife garden. Snack time enables children to eat food such as crackers and fruit and have regular drinks of water. However, this is not a particularly well organised event and staff are not deployed well to support children at this time. Staff do not take advantage of

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

opportunities to teach children about the food they are growing in the garden, such as tomatoes and potatoes, to increase children's understanding of healthy eating and about where food comes from.

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

Children show they have some understanding of keeping safe and risk taking. Children move with control around the garden while riding bicycles and take care using the paintbrushes with water on. Some children are able to clearly explain the dangers of cutting food with a knife, showing they understand safety measures. Children practise emergency evacuation and know how to line up for snack time as part of their routine safety procedures within the pre-school. The behaviour of some children does have an impact on how well all of the children stay safe within the pre-school. Most staff act as positive role models to help children learn about right and wrong and about behaviour expectations. However, not all staff give clear explanations to children about why certain behaviour is not acceptable.

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

The pre-school has a wide range of resources to meet children's needs and children enjoy playing with them. Staff organise the play environment to a satisfactory level, to support different areas of learning. For example, they provide areas where children can sit and practise writing and drawing, to support their future skills for school. They also provide a book area though it is not particularly comfortable or inviting, to support children's literacy skills. Systems are in place to enable children to request additional resources as the pre- school has to store equipment in a shed in the garden. Staff endeavour to create a more child-friendly environment within the premises by putting up displays of creative work and photographs of children engaged in different activities.

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provision

The pre-school is fulfilling their responsibilities to meet the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. They maintain all required documentation, including policies and procedures for safeguarding, a register of attendance, and evidence of suitability of adults. Staff understand their roles and responsibilities and behave appropriately towards the children at all times. They know to protect children from any person who has not been vetted and to keep children safe at all times. The staff team understand the signs that may indicate child protection concerns and the reporting procedures for this to safeguard a child. However, not all staff have a good understanding of what to do if they are concerned about the behaviour of a member of staff towards children. They lack a secure understanding of the reporting procedures for this beyond reporting to the management, which has an impact on how well they are able to safeguard children.

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provision

The management team responds quickly to any concerns or incidents to protect children's well-being, introducing additional policies and procedures to support their practice. Recruitment, vetting and induction procedures are appropriate and enable staff to understand their role and fulfil their responsibilities. The supervisor monitors staff performance to help drive improvement in the quality of their practice. Staff attend further training to develop their knowledge and skills of issues such as behaviour, safeguarding, safer recruitment and risk assessment. This has a positive impact on the care of the children.

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provision

The staff team review their practice and identify priorities for improvement in the outcomes for children. For example, the supervisor recognises the need to review and develop their systems for managing children's behaviour. She is working on new methods, such as a 'traffic light' system. This is being introduced to help children learn to manage their own behaviour through positive reinforcement and clear boundaries and expectations. The pre-school is also developing ways to improve their partnership working with parents. At present they do not have fully embedded systems to involve parents in the evaluation process or in how they encourage parents to support their children's learning and development further, including at home. Nevertheless, parents comment positively about the pre-school and how their children are happy to attend. They receive newsletters and attend meetings to discuss their child's progress and receive support for

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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 109533 Local authority East Sussex Inspection number 927801 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 2 - 8 Total number of places 24 Number of children on roll 38 Name of provider Union Corner Pre-School Committee Date of previous inspection 08/04/2011 Telephone number 07980 424579

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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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