Hop Skip and Jump Playscheme

Hop Skip And Jump Guildford Road, Chertsey, Surrey, KT16 0PZ

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 03/01/2014 29/10/2012

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early years provision

This inspection: 2 Previous inspection: 4 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 support and enable children to take part in adventurous and imaginative play that encourages children to think critically and creatively and ensures they have fun.  Staff make a good range of creative media and art tools available for children to make models and props to support their imaginative play.  The key-person system is effective in establishing strong relationships with children and their parents, to support children's individual needs.  Staff ensure that planning provides a good range of activities to promote children's good health.

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It is not yet outstanding because

 Plans to improve outdoor play opportunities are still in the early stages. As a result the full potential of the outdoor environment is not yet embraced.  Methods for involving children in reviewing the playscheme's overall effectiveness and in the activity planning are not fully developed.

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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 play activities both inside and outside.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector carried out a joint observation of children engaged in an activity with a member of staff with the manager.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector spoke to staff and parents, taking account of their views. A meeting with management was also held.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at a range of documentation, including children's records, risk assessments and safeguarding policies and procedures.

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Information about the setting

Hop Skip and Jump holiday playscheme registered in 2003. It is located in the grounds of St Peters Hospital in Chertsey and is linked with First Steps Day Nursery. It gives priority to children of staff employed at the hospital. The premises used by the playscheme have a designated quiet room, an art room, main playroom, kitchen and toilet facilities. Children also have direct access to a secure outdoor play area. The playscheme is registered on the Early Years Register and both the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. There are currently 29 children aged under eight years on roll. Five of these children are in the early years age group. Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The playscheme operates between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday during the school holidays. The playscheme employs three permanent members of staff and regular bank staff, depending on the number of children attending. All staff hold

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

 extend the range of activities and challenges for children to engage in outdoors to support their understanding of the world and creativity

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

 provide further opportunities and resources to enable younger children to more fully contribute towards improvement plans and activity planning.

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who attend

Staff are knowledgeable about the areas of learning and child development. Children are allocated to a key member of staff who helps them settle in and make new friends. Staff observe and interact with their key children closely, to identify their interests and needs. The team are experienced in caring for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. There are good systems in place to support these children and for securing additional help if needed. Assessment is thorough and staff use all that they learn about children, from their observations and daily communications with parents and any external agencies, to meet children's individual needs. Parents are well informed about the playscheme's play-based ethos. As a result they are strong supporters of outdoor and adventurous play. Parents delight in seeing their children covered in mud at the end of the day because they know they have had a great time.

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who attend

Staff involve children in activity planning for each holiday playscheme and have introduced a comments book for children to add their ideas and comments. However, although they help younger and less able children to add to this, alternatives to writing have not been considered. The combination of play-based activities and practical experiences offered to children complement those they typically take part in during term time at school. Children enjoy attending so much they ask parents, who arrive mid-afternoon, to go home and return later to collect them.

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who attend

Staff provide a good range of play activities and practical experiences that capture children's interests and, overall, support their learning and development in all areas. Children engage in physically active and often exhilarating play. For example, outdoors they create trenches and make pretend landmines as they re-enact wartime stories. Younger children are thrilled by this adventurous and innovative play which prepares them well for future school learning. Children rise to the physical challenge of completing assault courses and 'being the first to cut a plate of frozen chocolate' using a knife and fork. Staff teach children to follow recipes and to read weighing scales when they make cakes. Staff help children to recognise how to create complex shapes using unusual construction equipment. Sometimes planning follows a theme and activities are linked to this. For example, children listen and dance to music from different countries and build

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who attend

giant three dimensional models of landmarks, such as of the Eiffel Tower, when the focus is on countries. Staff support children's personal, social and emotional needs by engaging them in a range of circle and arch games which involve turn-taking and the need for cooperation. Staff challenge children's listening skills by mixing up instructions in physically active games, and organising games where they have to guess 'who is speaking in a disguised voice'.

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who attend

Staff talk to children consistently and encourage their critical thinking skills by asking open-ended questions and making open-ended resources freely available. For example, children make props out of recyclables for their pretend play and arrange giant wooden blocks to form a stage for their drama and singing productions.

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

Children are cared for in a welcoming and, overall, well equipped play environment. Children move freely between the main play room, garden, library/quiet room and art room, helping themselves to resources and organising their own play and learning. However, although the outdoor play area is well used by the children for physical play, opportunities to create areas for children to engage in science experiments and to have contact with nature have not been fully exploited by staff.

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

Relationships between children, and children and staff, are strong. New children are helped to settle in by staff and older children. Most of the children on roll previously attended the onsite work-place nursery and so have well established and close friendships with each other. These children visit the playscheme with their nursery key-person many times before they start attending, once they start full time school. Many of the staff also work in the nursery so already know the children well. This helps make the move easier. Few children attend the same school so when the holidays arrive they cannot wait to attend to meet up with their friends and staff. In many respects the playscheme is like a big family reunion. Children behave well overall. They respect the rules, such as 'four at a time in the ball pool' and set the sand timer themselves to ensure fairness. Staff provide good levels of support to children with specific behavioural needs. The newly created

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

library is equipped with a comfy corner for children to take time-out if they need it to calm themselves down. Children act out their real experiences in role-play and express their feelings in music and art. Older children are kind and considerate towards younger children. For example, without prompting from staff they give up their turn to go in the ball pool to allow younger children to go in together with their friends.

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

Staff help children to learn about health and safety through practical activities and routines. For example, they help staff carry out risk assessments where they identify equipment that needs mending or the need to remove something blocking a doorway. They learn kitchen hygiene, how to use knives safely and why they need to wear knee pads for roller skating. Children learn fire safety rules through evacuation practice and group discussions, for instance about fireworks.

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

Children help to prepare their own tea and serve themselves sensibly. Staff and children sit together to eat their packed lunch and use the time to share their news and ideas for the afternoon activities. Staff remind children to drink water throughout the day, before they feel thirsty. Staff organise a good range of physically active games, such as cricket, tag, skipping and hopscotch. Children enjoy the challenge of completing assault courses set up by staff, which includes crawling through scramble nets and balancing along beams. Children use equipment such as pogo-sticks and roller skates with developing competence.

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provision

The playscheme leaders have worked hard to drive improvement since the last inspection. All records and documentation required for the safe and efficient management of the setting are in place and suitably maintained. Staff have completed behaviour management and playwork training and have started to use the local authority quality improvement processes to ensure that they are assessing themselves against rigorous criteria. The impact of this concerted improvement effort is well demonstrated by the new approach to responding to boys' interest in playing war games and allowing them to take a reasonable level of risk in play, for instance climbing the trees in the garden. The environment has also been reorganised to enable children to make more independent choices. The main current focus for improvement is on raising funds to develop the outdoor play area. A buddy system for linking older children to younger children is also planned and staff and

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provision

children are striving to take enough photographs to create a visual timetable. Management take an active role in ensuring that activity planning provides children with sufficient challenge and meets children's individual needs.

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provision

The managers and staff demonstrate clear understanding of the safeguarding and welfare requirements. Risk assessments, which have been strengthened since the last inspection, are carried out by staff and help to minimise accidents. Child protection and behaviour management training is mandatory for all staff. Staff and leaders are clear about their responsibility to act on any concerns about children's welfare. There are clear procedures in place for dealing with any staff underperformance or concerns regarding staff suitability. There are suitable procedures in place for recruiting, vetting and inducting new staff. No staff member starts work until their Disclosure and Barring Service check has been completed. The trust uses a regular bank of staff who are well known by the children. Staff meetings are regular and include the bank staff. There are suitable systems in place for ensuring that staff receive regular supervision and mentoring where needed.

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provision

Lead roles and responsibilities, for example, for supporting children with special educational needs and disabilities, behaviour management and safeguarding are delegated to appropriate individuals who receive regular training. This ensures staff remain up to date in their knowledge of important matters.

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provision

The playscheme has good procedures in place for establishing and maintaining partnerships with parents and, where appropriate, external agencies involved with children. Parents are well informed about all aspects of the provision. Staff work closely with parents to support children with additional needs, to ensure they receive consistent support between their school, home and the playscheme. They are provided with regular newsletters which children contribute to as well, and information explaining how and what children learn through play. The team make a concerted effort to involve parents in their self-evaluation process. Parents hold the provision in high regard. Their comments about the provision include; 'This is the best playscheme yet'; 'my children have had so much fun, they don't want to go home of an evening. They love the fact the staff are so friendly and build camps with them'.

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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 Requires improvement The provision is not giving children a good standard of early years education and/or there are minor breaches of the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. It will be monitored and inspected within twelve months of the date of this inspection. 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

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Grade Judgement Description

the Early Years Foundation Stage. It will be monitored and inspected again within six months of the date of this inspection. 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 EY253334 Local authority Surrey Inspection number 892693 Type of provision Out of school provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 4 - 8 Total number of places 30 Number of children on roll 29 Name of provider Ashford And St Peter's NHS Trust Date of previous inspection 29/10/2012 Telephone number 01932 722192

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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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