The Co-Operative Childcare Blackbird Leys

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD Telephone: 0300 123 1231 Fax: 0300 123 3159 Minicom: 0161 618 8524 Email: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk Web: www.ofsted.gov.uk

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The Co-Operative Childcare Blackbird Leys Nursery Cuddesdon Way Blackbird Leys Oxford OX4 6JP Our Reference EY401464

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Outcome of monitoring visit for provision judged as inadequate

An Ofsted inspector, Esther Gray, carried out a monitoring visit of your provision on 10/09/2013. This visit follows on from your inspection where the provision was judged to be inadequate.

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Outcome of the visit

As a result of our inspection on 11/07/2013, we sent you a welfare requirements notice.

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Outcome of the visit

The welfare requirement notice required the following actions to be addressed: ensure all staff have regard to the Government's statutory guidance ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ in order that any concerns about children's safety or welfare are notified to agencies with statutory responsibilities without delay, take steps to ensure all staff understand the safeguarding policy and procedure and ensure all staff have up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding issues, assign each child a key person to ensure that every child’s care is tailored to meet their individual needs, to help the child become familiar with the setting, offer a settled relationship for the child and build a relationship with their parents, ensure there are appropriate arrangements in place for the supervision of staff who have contact with children and families, which includes opportunities for staff to discuss any issues - particularly

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Outcome of the visit

concerning children's development or well-being; identify solutions to address issues as they arise; and provide coaching to improve their personal effectiveness and implement an effective behaviour management policy and procedure to support children’s personal, social and emotional development. Include how children will be enabled to manage their feelings and behaviour, and have clear and consistent boundaries and behaviour management strategies.

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Outcome of the visit

The welfare requirement notice also required the following action to be taken: ensure there is a clear and well-understood policy, and procedure, for assessing any risks to children's safety, which identifies aspects of the environment that need to be checked on a regular basis, includes when and by whom those aspects will be checked, and how the risk will be removed or minimised, ensure that the premises, including outdoor spaces, are fit for purpose, clean and that staff comply with requirements of health and safety legislation (including hygiene requirements), ensure the ratio and qualification requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) are met and apply to the total number of staff available to work directly with children, deploy staff to meet the needs of all children and to ensure that children are adequately supervised, take steps to ensure written complaints are investigated relating to their fulfilment of the EYFS requirements and notify complainants of the

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Outcome of the visit

outcome of the investigation within 28 days of having received the complaint and maintain records and obtain and share information (with parents and carers, other professionals working with the child, and the police, social services and Ofsted as appropriate) to ensure the safe and efficient management of the setting, and to help ensure the needs of all children are met.

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Outcome of the visit

A notice to improve was also given that required the provider to: maintain a daily record of the names of the children being cared for on the premises, their hours of attendance and the names of each child's key person, implement the policy, and procedures, to safeguard children that covers the use of mobile phones and cameras in the setting, obtain and share information regularly with parents, carers, professionals and other settings to promote an effective two-way flow of information that informs planning and supports effective teaching, make the following information available to parents and/or carers: how the EYFS is being delivered in the setting; the range and type of activities and experiences provided for children, the daily routines of the setting, and how parents and carers can share learning at home; staffing in the setting and the name of their child’s key person and their role and implement the policy and procedures, to promote equality of opportunity for

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Outcome of the visit

children, which includes how the individual needs of all children, including those children with special educational needs or disabilities, will be included, valued and supported.

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Outcome of the visit

The notice to improve also identified two further actions to: improve staff's knowledge of the learning and development requirements in order to consider the individual needs, interests, and stage of development of each child and use this information to identify their next steps and plan a challenging and enjoyable experience for each child in all of the areas of learning and development and reflect on practice in order to evaluate and assess strengths and weaknesses and to drive improvement in children's learning and development.

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Outcome of the visit

The nursery registration was suspended on 15 July 2013. We took this step as we had reasonable cause to believe children were, or may have been, exposed to a risk of harm. The purpose of this suspension was to allow time for the circumstances to be investigated and for steps to be taken to reduce or eliminate the risk of harm. We believe children were, or may have been, exposed to a risk of harm as: suitably qualified, trained staff and managers have not been identified to ensure the safety of children since the suspension of senior staff and managers within the setting, ratios were inadequate to ensure the safety of children; evidenced by a large number of accidents and the number of staff suspended recently for safeguarding as a result of poor conduct, key people fail to know sufficient about the children they are responsible for to ensure their individual needs are safely met, there is poor deployment of staff and inadequate supervision of children by adults who are not

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Outcome of the visit

sufficiently familiar with them, children are not adequately supervised at all times and the organisation and deployment of staff does not meet the needs of the children. Not all staff understand and can implement the safeguarding policy, leaving children at risk of harm or neglect. Children are put at risk where children have professional care plans and where the staff fail to take appropriate steps to assure their care plan is adequately met and children are at risk of harm whilst on outings and within the setting due to poor assessment of risk to children.

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Outcome of the visit

A monitoring visit was carried out on 22 July 2013 to check compliance with the actions identified on the welfare requirement notice. Good progress was being made on the initial priority action required. There were no children present during this visit. The suspension was lifted by Ofsted following this visit. We decided that the grounds for suspension no longer apply. The reason for this is all actions outlined within a welfare requirement notice issued on 16 July 2013 have been met during the monitoring visit on 22 July 2013. The risks identified within the notice have either now been minimised or removed. Satisfactory progress was being made overall towards all the actions issued, including those that cannot be assessed without children being present. Ofsted decided to carry out a further monitoring visit to ensure that the changes and plans in place are sustained and that further action is taken to improve with regard to the actions identified on notice to improve when

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Outcome of the visit

Having considered all the evidence, the inspector is of the opinion that at this time the setting is making satisfactory improvement overall.

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Overall effectiveness of the improvement and outcomes for children

A further monitoring visit was carried out on 10 September 2013 to check how the improvements made at the first monitoring visit had been maintained and sustained and how the actions taken were contributing to the children's wellbeing once children were admitted to the provision. The good progress made on the initial priority action was found to have been sustained and was working satisfactorily in practice with children present.

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Overall effectiveness of the improvement and outcomes for children

It was found that the wide-ranging action plan, which identified how the training of staff could be tested and assures parents and professionals that they were competent in childcare practice to safeguard children was having a satisfactory effect. However, the higher levels of monitoring by leaders and managers and systems to test how well the setting is doing continue to have weaknesses which need to be reviewed to ensure concerns about managerial practice do not occur again. There remains work to be done in improving staff practice in delivery of the learning and development aspects of childcare and education. The acting manager and deputy have developed strong relationships with parents and within the reconstructed staff team, however the appointment of permanent managers has yet to be confirmed.

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Overall effectiveness of the improvement and outcomes for children

The inspector spoke with staff and some children on site and viewed all areas of the premises used by children. The considerable effort to review documents, clean and refresh the areas used by children and organise staff to ensure children and families will know who their key person is has been sustained and further enhanced by news letters, notices and invitations to parents to meetings. Senior staff have reviewed the systems and structure of the nursery. The proposed changes to support the progress have been delayed in some aspects as recruitment of an administrator to take administration tasks away from the manager, to allow the manager more time to monitor the care of children within the setting, is not yet in place. Senior area managers acknowledge the need for change to the systems used to monitor settings in this National Chain of nurseries to ensure information is available to them to reassure parents, carers and other professionals that the monitoring of practice is

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Overall effectiveness of the improvement and outcomes for children

improved, evidence of these improved changes have not yet been seen in practice in this setting.

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Overall effectiveness of the improvement and outcomes for children

Formal supervision of staff to provide support, coaching and training is well established and each member of staff has been interviewed. Induction for new recruits is on-going although there are some weaknesses identified in the priority given to the staff having full details from the start of child protection procedures they must follow. The inspector spoke with staff who continue to have a positive attitude towards their nursery and a strong commitment to working as a team to make the improvements. Risks identified within the notice have either now been minimised or removed. Good progress is being made overall towards all the actions issued and confirmed as met with children present. Some aspects of improvement required in terms of how managers and staff reflect on practice in order to evaluate and assess strengths and weaknesses and to drive improvement in children's learning and development is still emerging.

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Overall effectiveness of the improvement and outcomes for children

Ofsted will carry out a further monitoring visit to ensure that the changes and plans in place are sustained and that further action is taken to improve with regard to the leadership and management having suitable methods of oversight to sustain the improvement made.

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Next steps

Having considered all the evidence the inspector is of the opinion that at this time:

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Next steps

 The setting has made satisfactory progress in addressing the points for improvement. The next visit will be a further monitoring visit.

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Next steps

I hope that you have found the visit helpful in promoting improvement in your setting. If you have any further queries please contact us on the number at the top of this letter.

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Next steps

Susan Gregory HMI National Director, Inspection Delivery

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