Windmill Nursery

Windmill Nursery Windmill Pre - School Midlands Ltd, 68 Bromsgrove Road, Redditch, Worcestershire, B97 4RN

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 09/05/2013 15/04/2010

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early years provision

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

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This provision is good

 Staff are skilled at extending activities to maintain and enhance children's interests and ensure that they are motivated and eager to learn.  Good transition arrangements, both within the nursery and when children are moving to school, helps to provide them with support and consistency and enable them to settle well.  Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are very well supported and staff work closely in partnership with other professionals and agencies to ensure that their needs are fully met.  Children are very well protected because all staff are aware of the procedures to follow if they have concerns about a child in their care and an effective whistleblowing procedure ensures that staff working with the children are the suitable to do so.

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It is not yet outstanding because

 Children's developing social skills are not always fully supported at mealtimes. They are not always encouraged to use utensils correctly or to pour their own drinks.  Good hygiene is not sustained at mealtimes because staff do not always clear tables of food debris before the next course is served.

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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 children in all areas of the premises and outside.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at children's records, planning, assessment and other required documents.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector held ongoing discussions with the registered providers, staff and children.  The inspector sought the views of parents.

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Information about the setting

Windmill Nursery was registered in 2007 on the Early Years Register and the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. It is one of three privately owned childcare settings run by the same provider. It operates from a converted detached house, close to Redditch town centre. The nursery serves the local and surrounding areas. Older children are cared for on the first floor. There is a fully enclosed area available for outdoor play.

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Information about the setting

The nursery employs 17 members of child care staff. Of these, 16 hold appropriate early years qualifications at level 2 or 3. One member of staff is qualified to degree level and has achieved Early Years Professional Status. The nursery opens Monday to Friday 50 weeks of the year. Sessions are from 7.30am until 6.30pm. Children attend for a variety of sessions. There are currently 97 children attending within the early years age group. The nursery provides funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. A before and after school care service is run each weekday and holiday play scheme sessions are run during most school holidays. The setting supports children who speak English as an additional language and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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

 provide children with opportunities to develop their social skills at mealtimes, for example, by making sure that food is cut to an appropriate size and that children use the correct utensils, appropriate for their age when eating

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

 improve hygiene procedures at mealtimes, for example, by ensuring that all tables are wiped and cleared of leftover food before children move to their next course.

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who attend

Children settle well and enjoy the time they spend in this friendly, homely environment. Staff provide a range of activities which children enjoy taking part in and which are entirely suitable to meet their learning and development needs. Observation and planning procedures are in place and the next steps in children's development are identified and recorded in children's key person folders. Staff are adept at recognising where there are gaps in children's learning, or where activities need to be extended to ensure that every child receives an enjoyable and challenging learning experience.

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who attend

Staff successfully identify children who are achieving above their development band and provide activities to enhance and expand their learning potential. For example, they provide them with clip boards and empty diary sheets to support them in their early mark making skills. They have carried out the progress check at age two to enable them to assess children's development and act on any areas if there are concerns. Assessments and key person folders are shared with parents and staff successfully include them in their child's learning. They provide them with ideas of activities to complete at home to help enhance and develop children's next steps in the nursery.

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who attend

Children's communication is supported throughout the nursery. Staff in the baby room reinforce the sounds that children make and spend time helping older, more vocal babies to expand and develop their basic communication skills. Older children's language is developing well. They chat happily together as they talk about familiar experiences, such as what they have been doing at home. Staff sensitively build children's confidence if they are unsure by providing opportunities for them to develop and communicate at their own pace. They provide familiar items that children enjoy and spend time with them looking at their key person books and encouraging them to talk about the photographs and what they can see and remember. By providing children with this support and allowing time for them to respond, staff successfully foster and development communication skills. Older children learn phonic sounds and staff teach them to make different sounds and shapes

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who attend

with their mouths relating the sounds to familiar objects. For example, 'cow' and 'moo, and 'slide' and 'weeee '.

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who attend

All children are welcomed and valued. Children with special educational needs are fully included and staff are skilful in recognising children's individual learning needs and supporting them to join in activities at their own pace. Staff implement additional support mechanisms, such as wearing feelings cards to help children to communicate and provide one-to-one support to enable all children to fully participate and be involved in activities. Staff learn words in different languages to enable them to communicate effectively with children who speak English as an additional language.

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who attend

Babies and younger children are supported to investigate and explore new textures and objects. They enjoy playing with baked beans, jelly and shaving foam and explore treasure baskets with loofas, sponges, pine cones and coconut shells. Older children are encouraged and supported to solve problems and staff are skilfully in knowing when to offer support and help and when to stand back and observe, allowing children the time to solve the problem for themselves. For example, when building a road they experiment by adding slopes and ramps and work together as they discover that the arch brick could be turned on its side to make a bridge. When the road breaks they pretend to be a familiar builder character as they work together to fix it and staff ask leading questions to help them realise that they need a solid base on which to build. Younger children solve the problem of getting onto their stilts as they sit on a wall to place their feet onto the stilts

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who attend

before carefully pushing themselves to standing. Their problem solving skills and their abilities to work with others helps to prepare them in readiness for school.

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

A well-established and effective key person system helps to promote children's well-being and independence. Staff are very supportive of the children and this helps them to form secure emotional attachments. Children demonstrate their feelings of security as they happily interact with the staff and seek them out for a cuddle when they become tired. There are good transitions in place, both to move children throughout the nursery and to school. Children enjoy several settling in periods in their new room before moving, which enables them to become familiar with their new surroundings and staff. All learning and development documents move with the child to help staff in the new room become familiar with their stage of development and specific likes and routines. Parents are fully involved in the transition process and are able to discuss any concerns or queries they may have regarding the move. The nursery works cohesively with schools that children

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

will be moving to. They invite teachers to visit the nursery to meet children and to observe them in an environment in which children are familiar and comfortable. This ensures that the transition between nursery and school is a positive experience for the children.

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

Children enjoy healthy meals and snacks, such as cottage pie, fish and casserole with vegetables. Although younger children are provided with appropriate utensils to encourage them to feed themselves, food is not always cut into an appropriate size to fully enable them to achieve this skill. The organisation of lunch time in the pre-school room does not always ensure that it is a social experience for the children. As children were so engrossed in their outdoor play, staff forgot the time which resulted in some aspects of lunchtime being rushed. For example, bowls of food were put on the table before children had washed their hands and utensils were not placed on the table with the food. This resulted in some children beginning to eat their lunch with their fingers until the cutlery arrived. Hygiene throughout the nursery is generally good. However, on occasions the tables are not always wiped or cleared between courses. As a result, there are times when children

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

are eating pudding or fruit whilst the remains of their lunch is still in front of them on the table.

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

The premises are well resourced to provide children with an environment in which to learn and develop. Ongoing risk-assessments ensure that any potential hazards are identified and minimised. Children learn about their own safety as staff incorporate gentle reminders of how to use resources safely as they play. They teach children to recognise the risks for themselves and encourage them to find solutions to problems. For example, they consider what will happen if they all try to go down the slide together. Children behave well and there are effective systems in place to support and encourage positive behaviour and develop self-esteem. For example, staff act as positive role models and give out lots of praise for all achievements no matter how small. Children form good relationships with both adults and their peers. They work happily alongside each other as they learn to share and take turns. Children learn to adopt healthy lifestyles as they access outdoors in all

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

weathers and use equipment to develop their large muscle skills. They skilfully balance and walk on stilts, carefully manoeuvring them to avoid obstacles, climb using the climbing frame and crawl through tunnels.

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provision

Children are safeguarded well. All staff are very aware of their roles and responsibilities in protecting the children in their care and fully understand the signs and symptoms to be aware of. Staff regularly discuss safeguarding procedures, including whistle blowing, at staff meetings to ensure that they know when and from whom to seek advice. The registered provider has a good working knowledge of safeguarding procedures which further ensures children's protection. Recruitment procedures are robust. All staff are checked thoroughly before being employed and induction procedures are in place to help and support new staff. The current staff team work closely together to further provide consistency and support for the children. Appraisals are used to identify any areas for improvement and staff are encouraged to extend their knowledge and expertise by attending training.

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provision

Partnership with parents is strong. Parents are valued and their views are sought and respected and used to make improvements to enhance the nursery. For example, their ideas have been used to make improvements to the key person folders. Parents are happy with the nursery and comments received are extremely positive. They say that 'staff are flexible and supportive and help children to settle'. Staff have forged good working relationships with other professionals involved with the children, including the speech and language therapist, the educational psychologist and the occupational therapist. This helps them to support children to reach their development goals and ensure that their individual needs are routinely met.

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provision

The registered provider is extremely supportive and hands on. She is able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the nursery and is proactive in implementing the necessary changes to sustain improvement. For example, she has recently introduced flexible snack times and has encouraged staff to display photographs of children at child height. She supports staff to use additional resources, such as, quality assurance guidance to help them to reflect on and improve their practice. Above all, children are happy, settled and enjoy the time they spend at the nursery. The skills they learn help to prepare them to be ready for school and lay firm foundations for the future.

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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 EY347405 Local authority Worcestershire Inspection number 917988

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Type of provision

Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 17 Total number of places 60 Number of children on roll 97 Name of provider Windmill Pre-School Midlands Ltd Date of previous inspection 15/04/2010 Telephone number 07759350156

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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

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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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