Childminder in Hampshire

Inspection date

Previous inspection date 21/08/2013 02/04/2009

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early years provision

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

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This provision is outstanding

 Toys, equipment and activities fully ignite children's interest and the vibrant, outdoor area has many opportunities for children to develop in all areas of learning. Toddlers benefit greatly from creative, imaginative and sensory play opportunities which maximise on their exploration and investigation skills.  The childminder and her assistants have an exceptional knowledge of each child's backgrounds and needs. They are highly skilled and sensitive in helping children form secure emotional attachments, and provide a strong base for their developing independence and exploration.  Systems to monitor and evaluate the educational programmes are securely embedded and robust self-evaluation leads to challenging target setting and improvements.  The childminder understands her role and responsibility regarding safeguarding children to protect their welfare and implements robust procedures to support children's good

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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 spoke with the childminder and children at appropriate times throughout the inspection and made observations of children present.  The inspector looked at children's assessment records and planning documentation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector checked evidence of the childminder's training and sampled a selection of policies, documentation and children's records.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector conducted a tour of the premises and viewed the equipment and resources available for children.

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Information about the setting

The childminder was registered in 2005. She lives with her husband and four school-age children in Chineham, Basingstoke. The childminder's husband and older daughter occasionally act as her assistant. The whole of the downstairs of the childminder's house is used for childminding and there is a fully enclosed garden for outside play.

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Information about the setting

The childminder is registered on the Early Years Register and both the voluntary and compulsory parts of the Childcare Register. There are currently three children on roll in the early years age group. The childminder walks to local schools to take and collect children. The childminder is a member of the National Childminding Association. She has a National Vocational Qualification at level 3 in Childcare, Learning and Development. The family has pet cats.

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

 provide children with further opportunities to count routinely in their day.

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who attend

Children flourish in this stimulating, safe and nurturing environment. The childminder is very enthusiastic in her approach and she channels her energies into interacting with the children while they play. She clearly recognises the value of children learning through fun, play and first hand experiences and provides an excellent balance of adult-led and child- initiated activities. The childminder competently applies her considerable experience, skills and training to enrich children's learning and development with a dynamic range of activities to promote their individual progress. She monitors each child's progress using well-presented purposeful records. Broad themes offer a focus, widen children's experiences and stimulate their learning but are very flexible to follow children's interests and ideas.

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who attend

The childminder ensures children are actively engaged in stimulating play and learning experiences, which encourage them to explore and investigate. Children show high levels of independence, curiosity and imagination from a young age. The very effective planning of activities supports the enjoyable, challenging experiences taking into account children's next steps in learning and individual interests. Through planned themes and everyday experiences, children develop an excellent understanding of number, shape and colour. They match coloured balls to coloured cups, count out loud and work out how many containers they need for their water play game. All children are highly engaged with activities and are active and inquisitive learners.

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who attend

The childminder is extremely attentive as children confidently and freely share their thoughts and ideas. There is a sharp focus on helping children to acquire communication and language skills, supporting physical, personal, social and emotional development. She skilfully uses opportunities to enrich children's vocabulary and extend their conversation. This ensures all children are consistently challenged to progress further in their learning and are well prepared for school and their next stage of learning.

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who attend

The childminder is an excellent role model, who builds children's confidence as she offers them equal amounts of praise and encouragement. This means that children develop high levels of self-esteem and have a strong desire to try new activities and to persevere with them. Through skilful planning of resources, children encounter a vast range of activities that stimulate their problem solving skills and numeric understanding. The childminder helps children use counting in their everyday play and routines and they take great pleasure in filling and emptying containers, experimenting with quantity and measure. Children are provided with activities that enable them to count numbers and sort objects in their everyday play. For example, they play skittles outside and as they place the skittles together they begin to count by rote. However this is not yet consistently modelled or embedded throughout everyday play and so on occasions some children miss

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who attend

opportunities to support their current understanding further.

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who attend

Toys and equipment in the outdoor play area fully ignite children's interest, so that they maximise on their exploration and investigation skills. For example, they develop mathematical concepts when playing in water, by filling and emptying containers, pouring water through a funnel and using scoops to fill buckets and bottles. Later on children discover that their feet make footprints in the sand and they compare sizes of footprints and observe how the water runs down the slope and forms puddles. This enables and motivates children to follow their own interests and learning paths; to be creative, to think critically and to explore and investigate.

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who attend

Parents are extremely well informed and consulted about all aspects of children's learning and development. They work in complete partnership with the childminder to support children's individual development and educational plans. As a result, the childminder has established exceptionally positive and trusting partnerships with parents and welcomes their comments and feedback. Parents recognise the significant progress their children have made and appreciate how well their children have settled and the value placed on children's individuality and interests.

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

Children thrive in this secure and welcoming home and are relaxed with the childminder and her family. Children are well supported in their transition into the childminders home. This is because she expertly uses information that she has gathered on initial settling in visits to make sure the children feel comfortable and at home, from their very first day with her. The key person system plays a crucial and successful role in the rapid progress children make in a relatively short time. The childminder recognises and supports the uniqueness of each child, which is reflected in her caring and supportive interactions with them. The high levels of quality attention children are given, from either the childminder or one of her assistants, helps them gain an exceptionally strong sense of security. For example, when toddlers become tired after a busy morning of play, they seek out favourite and familiar adults for a special cuddle demonstrating strong emotional

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

Children's behaviour is excellent and they respond well to the childminder's calm, kind and consistent manner. She offers clear explanations and options, giving children time to think and respond to any questions or instructions. Clear and consistent prompting by the childminder ensures that young children develop a valuable awareness of safe practices from an early age. This means that they swiftly learn about safety and reasonable boundaries of expected behaviour by example and routine. For example, children roast marshmallows, on long sticks, in the childminders garden. This activity is used to introduce children to fire safety in a sensible way that allows them to learn first-hand about staying safe.

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

The childminder organises her home, time and resources exceptionally well to support children and to meet their varying routines and needs. Resources on offer provide children with an excellent level of on-going challenge and interest. Children are purposeful in their play and easily able to make their own choices and selections, as resources are readily accessible and clearly labelled. This means that children confidently acquire the key skills needed for the next steps in their learning.

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

Children's understanding of personal health and hygiene is promoted extremely well through the daily routines and planned activities. The childminder has created a garden that is child-friendly with more than adequate space for energetic play. Children excitedly run around, energetically playing with a rich selection of resources, climbing, kicking balls. They enjoy the wide range of opportunities to access daily sand and water play, use chalk on a large board or sit in the shade on a comfy chair and read a story.

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

The childminder actively raises children's awareness of the benefits of exercising. She talks to them about how their bodies feel when they have been active or helps them practise for an organised sports day in the local park, where they have the opportunity to run races or throw bean bags into hoops. Individual health and dietary needs are well maintained and supported in close cooperation with parents, to effectively promote children's welfare. Children develop an excellent understanding of healthy eating from the nutritious options provided by the childminder and children's involvement in growing vegetables in the garden that are used in their meals.

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provision

Children are extremely well safeguarded as the childminder and her assistants have a robust understanding of safeguarding issues and are clear about their roles and responsibilities to protect children. All the required checks have been completed to confirm that adults in the home are suitable to be in regular contact with the children. The childminder has a thorough written safeguarding policy and knows what action to take if she had concerns about a child. Meticulous risk assessments are carried out to address any potential hazards and the childminder is extremely intuitive of children's safety and security at all times. All adults who work with the children are first aid trained and confident in acting in an efficient and timely manner when dealing with any accidents that may occur.

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provision

Efficient organisation of the provision underpins the outstanding practice. Children's welfare is exceptionally well-supported by all those who work within her setting because they are extremely secure in their knowledge and understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage requirements. The childminder ensures her assistants receive effective induction training to help them understand their roles and responsibilities and provide a consistent approach to supporting children to learn. All of the adults who work with the children in this family feel setting are totally committed, dedicated and passionate about their work with children. This means that children are extremely well supervised and the child to adult ratio allows for one to one attention on many occasions during the day.

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provision

The childminder is very well qualified and demonstrates a highly professional approach to her role. Rigorous, on-going reflection and monitoring of her own practice and that of her assistants effectively promotes high quality outcomes for children. Her constant drive to gather new ideas ensures that the provision continues to promote the very best outcomes for children. Objective self-evaluation that fully involves parents and children means that action planning fully inspires the setting of ambitious targets for improvement.

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provision

Strong partnerships with parents and external agencies, consistently contribute to meeting children's needs. Parents are extremely well informed about all aspects of their children's care and the childminder creates exciting ways for them to share in their children's learning. Parents receive ongoing information through email updates, text messages and frequent discussions about their child's care and learning. They are also actively encouraged to add comments to their children's learning journey records which contributes significantly to the overall accuracy of the childminder's planning. The childminder proactively initiates effective partnerships with practitioners who care for children in other early years settings to ensure children's progress is readily shared and cohesion in their learning is fully maximised.

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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 EY308242 Local authority Hampshire Inspection number 847469 Type of provision Childminder Registration category Childminder Age range of children 0 - 8 Total number of places 6 Number of children on roll 6

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Telephone number

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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