Little Learners (NE)

Little Learners (NE) Fawdon Community Centre, Fawdon Park Road, NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE, NE3 2PL

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 03/09/2013 Not Applicable

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early years provision

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

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This provision is good

 Key persons are highly skilled and sensitive and help children to form good emotional attachments and feel very secure within the setting. They have a very good knowledge and understanding of the children that they care for and skilfully support children in their next steps in learning. As a result, all children make good progress.  The strong partnership with parents is a particular strength of the group. They receive information about their child's learning as well as how best to help their children to learn at home. Parents comment that they feel empowered to contribute to their children learning and development.  Staff demonstrate an excellent understanding of the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. The thorough implementation of robust policies and detailed procedures successfully promotes children's safety and well-being.

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It is not yet outstanding because

 There is scope to further develop the arrangements for managing staff performance in the setting to enhance opportunities for staff to consistently share their knowledge and understanding of good practice.  Self-evaluation is not fully established to include the views of parents, to identify clear targets to show how the group will continually improve.

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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 activities within the main room of the group and in the outdoor area.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector held discussions with the manager and looked at a range of policies, records and development files.  The inspector talked with staff, children and parents.

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Information about the setting

Little Learners was registered in 2013 and is on the Early Years Register. It is situated in Fawdon Community Centre in the Fawdon area of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The group serves the local area and is accessible to all children. It operates from one room and there is a fully enclosed area available for outdoor play. The group employs five members of childcare staff. All hold appropriate early years qualifications at level 3.

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Information about the setting

The group opens Monday to Friday, term time only. Sessions are from 9.15am until 12.15pm. Children attend for a variety of sessions. There are currently 32 children attending who are in the early years age group. The group provides funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. It supports a number of 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:

 enhance the current use of self-evaluation so that it clearly reflect targets that incorporate the views of parents, to allow the group to improve learning opportunities for children

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

 develop the performance management systems further to clearly identify and reflect on how staff can share knowledge, understanding and good practice.

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who attend

Staff have a substantial impact on children's learning and development so that children make good individual progress in relation to their starting points. They are well aware of children's backgrounds and capabilities, taking account of the length of time children have been at the group and how often they attend. Through the activities available, staff ensure that children reach expected levels of development. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are very well supported. They have individual plans in place and targets are agreed with parents to ensure that they make progress in all aspects of their learning and development.

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who attend

Children achieve good levels of personal, social and emotional development, particularly through strong relationships with their key persons. They enjoy the challenges to develop physically, handling a wide range of tools with skill and being physically active in the spacious accommodation. They receive plenty of stimulation from attentive staff to extend their communication and language skills. Children gain confidence to engage in conversation with the attentive staff through the very successful use of small group time. As a result, they make good individual progress and work effectively towards achieving expected levels of progress.

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who attend

Children receive particularly good support through individual attention at their chosen activities and personally planned story times. Staff are exceptionally skilled at story telling. They use a large book and each child is also supported with their copy of the book. Staff engage children in the story as they stimulate their interest in books. This promotes children's literacy skills. Children's further understanding in literacy and mathematics, is enhanced for example, in the use of the initial sounds of their names and extended counting at singing time. They have good opportunities to explore their surroundings to gain understanding of their environment, for example, as they grow fruit and vegetables in their growing area. Children receive good support through a wealth of resources, to express their ideas through art.

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who attend

Staff have good knowledge and understanding of how to promote children's learning. They demonstrate consistent expectations and, through their enthusiasm, effectively engage and motivate children to further extend their play. They plan the room so that children have ample space to play and access many resources for themselves. Staff give very good support so that new children confidently choose what they want to do. They extend their use of words and confirm each child's play by talking about their chosen activity. They extend children's thinking by making comments and posing questions that help children to consider different aspects. Staff plan group activities very well to engage and motivate children. They use small key groups regularly, so children receive encouragement to feel included and effectively participate.

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who attend

Children enjoy their activities, focusing and persevering at them. For example, they are engaged in role play as they use the stethoscope to listen to each other's chests. This means that they acquire a good range of skills and positive attitudes to develop and learn effectively. Over their pre-school year, children become ready for the next stages in their learning at school. Staff effectively understand the consistent, updated, planning and assessment systems used in the group. They make good use of ongoing, observational assessment. Through this, they effectively evaluate children's play and incorporate their next steps of learning and interests into the quality planning. Key persons revise these plans on a daily basis, to support children's current learning needs. The manager and staff have successfully implemented the progress check for children aged two and share these with parents and other professionals.

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who attend

Staff work closely with parents of new children to learn about them and their family backgrounds, and, as a result, children settle well. Staff effectively engage parents in their children's development and learning in the group. They take good account of information that parents share, and occasionally write, about their children's activities at home. Staff successfully keep parents informed about their children's achievements and progress.

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

The group's care practices support children to feel emotionally secure and effectively help them to be healthy. Staff consistently implement well-established procedures so that children receive focused support from their caring key persons. The key person supervises their key group's personal care and they are well aware of their children's play preferences and learning requirements. As a result, support and conversations are personalised and all children form close bonds and secure emotional attachments to their carers. Children confidently seek staff out for reassurance and extra resources when needed. They have a positive approach to new experiences and are happy and content.

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

Staff prepare children well for their transitions. They effectively get children ready for the move into nursery and school. Children are able to visit the groups and staff talk with them about the transition. Staff share developmental files with the setting, so that everyone has a firm basis to support the child in moving forward. Staff successfully prepare children for their next stage in learning as their skilful practice has a positive impact on children's confidence and self-motivation. For example, children gain good independence in starting to put on their own painting aprons and dressing up clothes.

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

Children make good relationships with adults, both staff and visitors. They relate well to each other, offering help and amicably sharing resources, such as bicycles and tricycles. Throughout their time at the group, many form increasingly strong friendships. Children respond well to the clear boundaries that they help to set, for example, as they hear gentle reminders to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Children's behaviour is very good, as staff set a positive example by being considerate and thoughtful for others. Children willingly take on responsibility, for example, tidying away before moving for snack and they notice pieces of equipment to clear away without staff asking them. As staff constantly expect children to do things for themselves, children gain particularly good independence. From the time they start at the group, children organise considerable periods of play for themselves. They collect and return items from the accessible storage.

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

Staff support children particularly well to feel safe and to learn about potential hazards. Well-considered care practices enable children to be aware of safety and to take appropriate risks. For example, they learn to negotiate wheeled toys in an enclosed space and to look out for each other. Children effectively learn about healthy lifestyles. Staff encourage children to develop a good understanding of the importance of physical exercise. Children also benefit from a range of healthy snacks and drinks. These are served to children in small groups so as to develop their social skills.

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provision

Leadership is good and management is effective because the provision has an in-depth understanding of the responsibilities in meeting the learning and development requirements. There is an accurate overview of the curriculum through monitoring of the educational programmes and of the levels of delivery by individual staff. This means that the group offers a broad range of experiences to help children make good progress towards the early learning goals. The basis of the teaching is good as staff have a secure understanding of each area of learning and how children learn. The manager monitors the levels of planning and assessment, to make sure these are compatible, consistent and display an accurate understanding of all children's skills, abilities and progress. Staff target individual children identified as being in need of support, to ensure their needs are successfully met. As a result, these children receive supportive intervention and any gaps in their learning and

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provision

The leadership and management have a very good understanding of their responsibilities in meeting the safeguarding and welfare requirements, including arrangements for safeguarding and suitability. They implement these consistently to create an environment that is welcoming, safe and stimulating. All staff have completed safeguarding training and the manager has undertaken enhanced child protection training. As a result, they have an in-depth knowledge of how to keep children safe and how to respond to any concern about a child. Staff implement all required policies and procedures well. Written risk assessments are detailed and frequently reviewed so that staff keep children safe, indoors, outdoors and on outings. All required documentation is effectively maintained, including the record of staff suitability. Management have a very good understanding of employment and vetting procedures and carry these out very effectively.

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provision

The provider monitors and manages staff's performance and their professional development through regular appraisal. Although this system is currently in its infancy, staff and management have a clear understanding of how this will impact on, improve and assess their practice. New staff have a comprehensive induction, which ensures they are familiar with all aspects of the group. The management encourages staff to regularly attend relevant early years courses and best practice meetings. However, the performance management system is not embedded enough to show that staff clearly identify and reflect on how they can continue to improve knowledge, understanding and practice.

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provision

The group have implemented a self-evaluation system which shows clearly how the group has progressed well since registration. They identify clear strengths and weaknesses. However, at present they do not gather parents views to input into this process so that any changes made, reflect parents views and opinions about the service offered to themselves and their children. Each child has free access to their learning journey. Their key person sits with them and talks about the photographs or pictures they have created to find out how they felt about a particular activity, event or situation. In this way, staff are able to focus their planning and teaching on children's requirements and interest.

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provision

Families receive plenty of information about the provision and about the revised Early Years Foundation Stage. In most aspects, they are encouraged to contribute to the setting, and parents comment that due to the excellent support offered by the staff, they feel empowered to ask questions of professionals about any aspect of their child's care and education. The group establishes effective arrangements for information sharing and partnership working with other providers. As a result, there are good procedures to identify all children's needs and help them to make progress. The group has good links to ensure they work in partnership with a wealth of external agencies, such as speech and language therapists.

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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 EY461143 Local authority Newcastle Inspection number 909660 Type of provision Sessional provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 5 Total number of places 24 Number of children on roll 32 Name of provider Little Learners (NE) Community Interest Company Date of previous inspection not applicable Telephone number 07768968617

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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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