Seymour Kindergarten

Seymour Kindergarten 23 Seymour Road, Crumpsall, MANCHESTER M8 5BR

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 15/05/2014 08/08/2011

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early years provision

This inspection: 4 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 4 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 4

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This provision is inadequate

 Leadership and management is weak. A number of the safeguarding and welfare requirements are not met, such as ensuring people are suitable to fulfil the requirements of their roles and that practitioners have an adequate knowledge of safeguarding children procedures. Also, not enough is done to ensure that children are kept safe at all times within secure premises.  There is no key person system in place to support children's well-being and to build a relationship with their parents. As a result, children do not receive individually tailored support.  Children's needs are not met as assessments are not being used to identify any gaps in children's progress. Also, the progress check at age two is not being completed for all children.  Educational programmes do not provide children with challenges across all areas of learning. As a result, children do not enjoy them, get easily distracted and do not make

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This provision is inadequate

sufficient progress given their starting points.

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It has the following strengths

 Children's dietary needs are met as they enjoy healthy and varied meals and snacks.  Children are offered opportunities to explore and investigate and be physically active within their own outdoor area.

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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 in the three main playrooms.  The inspector looked at children's assessment records and planning documentation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector checked evidence of suitability and qualifications of practitioners working with children, and the provider's improvement plan.  The inspector took account the views of parents and carers spoken to on the day.  The inspector conducted a joint observation with the deputy manager.

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Information about the setting

Seymour Kindergarten was re-registered in 2003 and is on the Early Years Register and the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Registers. The nursery is privately owned. It operates from a detached house in the Crumpsall area of Manchester and is run by Toto Nurseries Limited. There are currently 41 children on roll. Children are cared for within three rooms located on two floors. All children share access to a secure outdoor. The nursery is open Monday to Friday, from 7am to 6pm, all year round except public holidays and a week at Christmas. The nursery supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. There are seven members of staff, all of whom are qualified. The nursery receives support from the local authority early years advisory team. The nursery provides funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children.

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must:

 provide each child with a key person to ensure that their learning and care is tailored to meet their needs and that relationships are built with their parents

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must:

 keep evidence of each practitioners' references, identity checks and employment history to ensure the suitability of people working with the children.

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must:

 use assessment to identify whether children are meeting expected levels of development to ensure children are supported to narrow the gaps in their learning

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must:

 review children's progress between the ages of two and three years to accurately identify their ongoing needs and support their future learning and development

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must:

 ensure a practitioner is designated to take lead responsibility for safeguarding children and that practitioners are given support, advice and guidance to enable them to have a secure knowledge of safeguarding policies and procedures

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must:

 provide educational programmes that offer children enjoyable and challenging experiences in all areas of learning and development to enable them to make good progress

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must:

 ensure that the premises are secure at all times to keep children safe.

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who attend

Teaching and learning are insufficient as children are not provided with educational programmes that are challenging and enjoyable. Consequently, the children become easily distracted and have limited learning opportunities. As a result, older children are not well prepared for school. The educational programmes on offer to the children do not cover all areas of learning. For example, children are not able to access the sand tray as the sand needs replacing. Also there are easels with no equipment for children to enjoy making marks. Practitioners question the children while they play, allowing them to think critically. However, the required progress check for children between the ages of two and three years is not being carried out for all children. As a result, interventions cannot be sought for children whose progress is not in line with their age. Furthermore, children are not given an individual key person. Therefore, their specific needs are not being met and

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who attend

consequently, they are not being sufficiently challenged to develop new skills. Assessments of children's progress are not effective in identifying their development level and needs. As a result, interventions are not put in place for children who may need additional support. Practitioners observe children on starting the nursery, to assess their development and identify a starting point for their future learning.

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who attend

Children are offered opportunities to enjoy outdoor play where they are able to develop physical skills. For example, they balance on the crates, pedal and steer the bikes and climb on the climbing frame. The children enjoy investigating the environment; one child uses a small twig to move the dirt to see what he can find. Children talk about the ladybird that they have found and they identify a wasp that is flying around the tree. Practitioners promote mathematical learning as they count how many tokens are on the scale. The children also enjoy reading and singing outside, supporting their developing literacy and expressive arts skills.

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who attend

Older children are given the opportunity to be helpers at mealtimes. They learn about helping others and being helpful, by giving out the knives and forks to their friends. Resources are stored at the children's levels. Consequently, they are able to access them independently. Children are encouraged to be independent. For example, children's coat pegs are labelled with their photograph, in order for them to be able to easily identify where their coats should be hung. Children take off their own shoes and place them in the box where shoes are stored. They also put their own aprons on ready to paint their pictures. Parents are informed about their children's progress through daily discussions when they come to collect their children from nursery.

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

Practitioners are approachable and friendly, and the environment is bright and inviting, with displays of the children's work. Routines are established and the children are aware of things that happen during the day. Consequently, they are generally settled and aware of their surroundings. Most children are happy and secure in the nursery. However, this is a false sense of security because managers do not ensure that vetting procedures are thorough. Also, the premises is not kept safe at all times as the main nursery door is sometimes left open, compromising the children's safety. Children generally behave well. However, they are not given an individual key person to support their needs. Therefore, there is no one responsible for ensuring that their learning and care is tailored to their needs. Parents are aware of which practitioners look after their children, although no one practitioner is assigned to their child. Consequently, they do not have a specific person to

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

liaise with them. As a result, they are unable to build a close working relationship with one practitioner in order to share relevant information.

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

Children are aware of how to keep themselves safe; a child talks about the need to wash her hands to wash away any germs. Children are also aware of the need to wash their hands before eating their meals. They also access the bathroom independently to wash their hands after they have been painting, showing their understanding of keeping clean. Children are offered healthy, nutritious meals. Practitioners support the children eating their meals by helping them cut up their food. Children enjoy talking about what foods they are eating with practitioners, promoting social interaction and language development. Children are offered fresh fruit and have access to drinking water throughout the day, ensuring that they keep hydrated, which supports good health. Practitioners are aware of the need for adequate hygiene practices. For example, they wear aprons when serving meals, and follow procedures when nappy changing, preventing the risk of cross-

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

Children are offered plenty of opportunities to access the outdoors and to fresh air, which enables them to participate in energetic play and physical exercise. Children are able to learn about different faiths and cultures through displays in the nursery. During transitions ,practitioners complete a report summarising the children's developmental stages. This is carried out to support them in their move to the next room in the nursery, or on to school. However, assessments of the children's progress are not being completed effectively to demonstrate their levels of achievements and so consequently, these may not be accurate.

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provision

Leadership and management are weak and a number of safeguarding and welfare requirements have not been met. Recruitment and vetting procedures and pre- employment screening for new staff is not robust enough. For example, vetting checks have not been completed for all staff and evidence of practitioner's references are not available. As a result, children are at risk of harm. The nursery has in place a safeguarding children policy. However, practitioners have insufficient knowledge of the procedures to take in the event of a concern. The nursery does not have a designated lead safeguarding children practitioner to take overall responsibility for the safeguarding of children, which is a legal requirement. Outdoor areas that children use are kept secure when the children are accessing them. Risk assessments are completed to keep the children safe on outings. Daily risk assessments are carried out on areas of the nursery. There are procedures in

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provision

place to ensure only authorised people are able to collect the children from nursery and a password is obtained for all children. However, the nursery does not always remain secure as, during the inspection, the nursery main door was found open. This means children are not always kept safe. Consequently, there are also breaches of the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. A number of the learning and development requirements have not been met, which means that these are not monitored effectively. For example, the progress check for children between the ages of two and three is not completed for all children to enable early intervention should a child require additional support. Children's assessments are not being carried out effectively, meaning children are not able to be given adequate support when necessary. Self-evaluation is weak as it has failed to identify weaknesses that have been raised in this inspection.

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provision

Practitioners are appropriately qualified for their roles. They are well deployed around the nursery both indoors and outdoors, maintaining adult-to-child ratios. This ensures that children are well supervised and supported. Adequate procedures are in place for the administration of medication and dealing with accidents and injuries, helping to keep children safe.

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The Childcare Register

The requirements for the compulsory part of the Childcare Register are

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actions)

The requirements for the voluntary part of the Childcare Register are

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To meet the requirements of the Childcare Register the provider must:

 ensure that a child is unable to leave the premises without a person who is caring for children on those premises becoming aware of the child leaving (compulsory part of the Childcare Register)  have effective systems to ensure that any person caring for, or in regular contact with, children: is suitable to work with children which must include obtaining an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check, is of integrity and good character, has skills and experience suitable for the work and is physically and mentally fit for the work (compulsory part of the Childcare Register)  ensure that a child is unable to leave the premises unsupervised except where the childcare is one access childcare, or where the child is aged eight or over and the parent of the child has agreed that they may leave the provision unaccompanied (voluntary part of the Childcare Register)  have effective systems to ensure that any person caring for, or in regular contact

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To meet the requirements of the Childcare Register the provider must:

with, children: is suitable to work with children which must include obtaining an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service check, is of integrity and good character, has skills and experience suitable for the work and is physically and mentally fit for the work (voluntary part of the Childcare Register).

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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 EY230750 Local authority Manchester Inspection number 872518

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Type of provision

Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 17 Total number of places 29 Number of children on roll 41 Name of provider Toto Nurseries Limited Date of previous inspection 08/08/2011 Telephone number 0161 795 2003

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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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