First Steps Cornwall Ltd - Newquay

First Steps Childcare Centre Porth Bean Road, Newquay, Cornwall, TR7 3JF

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 19/05/2014 Not Applicable

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early years provision

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

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This provision is outstanding

 Extremely approachable and caring staff help children feel very confident and settle into the childcare centre quickly.  Staff use their highly detailed knowledge of individual children to provide extremely inviting activities, which engage children's interest and promotes their development and learning.  The setting is exceptionally proactive in engaging parents as active partners in their children's learning and progress.  All staff show an exceedingly high commitment to provide excellent provision, they continually reflect on their experiences and training, identifying improvements they can make and confidently act on them.

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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 playrooms and the outdoor play areas.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector took account of parents and carers views spoken to on the day, and those included in the settings own parent survey.  The inspector carried out a joint observation alongside the settings advisor.  The inspector sampled documentation regarding planning and children's progress.  The inspector held discussions with the provider and staff.

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Information about the setting

First Steps Childcare Centre re-registered as a limited company in 2013. It operates from purpose built premises situated within the grounds of St Columb Minor CP School on the outskirts of Newquay, in Cornwall. The childcare centre serves the local community and surrounding area.

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Information about the setting

The childcare centre is open each weekday from 7.45am to 6.15pm, for 50 weeks of the year. All children share access to an enclosed outdoor play area. There are currently 181 children in the early years age group on roll; children over the age of eight also attend. Children attend for a variety of sessions. The childcare centre receives funding for the provision of free early education to children aged two, three and four years. The childcare centre is registered on the Early Years Register and the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register.

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Information about the setting

The childcare centre employs 23 childcare staff, all have an early years qualification to at least level 3; one staff member is a qualified teacher and one holds early years practitioner status.

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

 continue to extend pictorial communication methods, to support children with any communication difficulties.

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who attend

The educational programme covers all areas of learning extremely well. This is because management and all staff carefully analyse and monitor their planning which is highly focused on individual children and their interests. The staff make detailed observations and children's progress records are extremely comprehensive. The staff place high importance on parental contributions and involve parents in assessing and planning for their children's ongoing learning. Staff keep parents very well informed about the aims and focus of activities in their children's learning groups and staff are extremely proactive in encouraging them to consolidate and support this learning at home. Staff produce regular progress reports including progress summaries for two-year-old children. These records show that all children are making very good progress, with several already working towards their Early Learning Goals. The staff tailor specific Individual Education

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who attend

Plans to enable children who are struggling, to quickly catch up with their friends and maintain these levels of development. Together all the staff involved with children, evaluate and monitor the activities they provide. The childcare centre is constantly adapted and adjusted to match the developing needs of the children on an individual basis. The staff have a secure knowledge, understanding and familiarity with sources of support available. Along with the information that they seek from parents and other agencies prior to children's admission the staff prepare, plan for and meet the needs of children with disabilities on admission. They work extremely effectively with other agencies to support children's needs and promote their development.

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who attend

Staff are highly conscientious in actively seeking information from parents about children's interests and experiences at home and use this information and their own observations in their focused planning. For example, staff provide water play and encourage babies to kick and splash in the water with their feet after learning from parents about a young child's wariness of paddling in the sea. In addition to raising children's experience of and confidence in splashing, staff use this activity to introduce further vocabulary, such as splashing, wet, cold and bubbles. They later reinforce some of this language as children enjoy reaching for and trying to catch bubbles blown for them by the staff.

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who attend

The flexibility of staff and high importance they attach to children's individual interests and preferences enables them to respond quickly to children's expressions of interest. When they note that children running vehicles through flour comment on the lack of sound, they consider how to develop this activity. Staff add puffed rice cereal to the flour to create a crunchy sound. This encourages the children to experiment with the sounds they can create. The staff skilfully introduce descriptive words, such as crunchy, dry, and dusty.

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who attend

Staff have a very secure and clear understanding of the importance of providing a vocabulary rich environment to promote children's language and communication. They emphasise its importance by focusing on key words each week and informing parents of these. This enables parents to reinforce learning at home. Staff and senior management carefully monitor children's language and communication skills using the Every Child a Talker programme and use this to raise their skill levels.

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who attend

Staff support babies' communication using sign language, gesture and pictures. Picture and written labels help babies and young children find resources and begin linking words to pictures. Young children are able to express their preferences about activities and resources by taking staff to them. However, the provision of an additional set of photographs of all available resources and activities is not available to increase their opportunity to make choices about activities. As they grow older and move through the childcare centre, they become familiar with their own names, self-registering and finding their name labels at mealtimes. Their recognition of word and letter shapes and access throughout the setting to a wide variety of mark making materials encourage and support children in attempting to write and label their work. This means children are developing the dexterity they need for their future writing skills.

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who attend

The extremely high value that the staff place on communication and children's home languages is evident in their preparation and readiness. They welcome and celebrate children's home languages by immediately providing dual labelling in the environment when children with English as an additional language begin attending the setting. They seek information about key words from parents and access dual language books. Children enjoy listening to stories read in large and small groups, listening attentively studying books themselves, both in the large indoor book corner and cosy sheltered areas that staff provide outdoors.

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who attend

Staff are all keenly aware of the next steps and learning intentions of all the children in their care, so provide appropriate challenge and extend children's knowledge and thinking. Children are developing their coordination and dexterity when using scissors to cut out and they can confidently name shapes. The staff reinforce children's mathematical understanding, by asking children to confirm the shapes characteristics.

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who attend

All children enjoy and benefit from regular outdoor play. Staff skilfully support children's curiosity as they explore the outdoor environment. Children talk about inspects they have found and experiment as they create their own paintbrushes from natural materials. Children are highly motivated and show pride and excitement in their discoveries as they hurry in to collect the camera and take photographs of what they have found. Another child on seeing dark clouds appear eagerly searches for the rain and cloud symbols in order to amend the weather chart, pointing out to a member of staff that it is going to start raining.

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

Children develop extremely secure and warm relationships with staff. This is because staff get to know their key children and their families extremely well. Prior to children's admission, an allocated key person, discusses and completes a very detailed registration and All about me form with the parents. This enables the setting to be fully aware of and prepare to meet children's individual needs from the start. Staff record the levels of children's engagement in activities. This gives them an accurate measure of their well- being and alerts them to the impact of changing situations, such as a new baby or a parent spending time away.

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

Parents are full of praise for the welcome they receive from staff and their approachability. They value the support that staff give them when settling their children in; this includes supporting breast-feeding parents. This leaves parents very confident in the care that their children receive. Key persons support children very well when they move on to their next room, accompanying them on introductory visits. This includes supporting children in establishing relationships with their future key person and familiarising them with their new environment. Staff also provide information and support parents, letting them know what to expect when their children move rooms. Staff also support children well as they prepare to move to school. They share their knowledge of key information, such as children's routines and preferences, so promoting continuity of care. Weekly visits to the school library, help children grow familiar with the building. Reception teachers from this

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

and other school's visit children in the setting. This enables children to grow familiar with them in preparation for joining the schools. The wide range of activities and enabling environment help children develop the confidence, positive attitudes and skills that they need for their future development and prepares them very well for moving on to school.

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

This safe and secure environment enables children to feel confident and quickly settle at nap times, when they sleep soundly. Staff conscientiously make frequent checks on sleeping children, which promotes children's well-being. The wide range of high quality resources available, reflect similarities and differences in the community. These and projects about different cultures encourage children to respect difference and diversity. Children develop excellent social skills through carefully planned group activities, such as parachute games, where children learn to follow instructions and take turns. The staff give very clear directions so that all children are aware of what to expect. They reward achievements and positive behaviour on reward charts and present very positive role models showing respect to children and each other. This supports children in feeling valued and secure and playing and working cooperatively together, which leads to

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

excellent behaviour and development of strong social skills.

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

The staff teach children how to handle and use scissors and tools safely, both in the setting and on Forest school sessions. Staff are highly conscientious in teaching children how to protect themselves from the sun. Ensuring that children wear sun cream and sunhats and set positive role models by letting children see that they are wearing sun cream themselves. Extremely detailed records ensure that every single child participates in fire drills to ensure that they become familiar with them and learn safely to evacuate in an emergency.

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

The staff make note of and follow individual children's dietary needs, allergies and preferences. At lunchtime, children can have a hot meal provided by the adjacent school dinner service, or packed lunches. The setting displays and shares information and suggestions about healthy packed lunches with parents. Staff provide and discuss healthy choices of food and drinks for snacks. This leads to children confidently explaining how healthy foods provide them with energy and understanding the importance of keeping a healthy balanced diet.

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

Staff conscientiously teach children of the need to follow good hygiene routines. Children see and experience staff minimising risk of cross infection as the staff use disposable gloves at nappy changing times. This results in older children understanding the need to try to protect themselves from germs by appropriate washing and cleaning. The conscientious enforcement of no outdoor shoes in the baby room ensures that the floor of the baby room is clean, so protecting crawling babies.

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

Daily access to outdoor play enables children to benefit from the fresh air and exercise. They develop independence skills as they dress themselves appropriately. There are close links with the adjacent school and children benefit from the challenges presented by their use of the school's adventure play area.

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provision

Leadership and management have highly effective systems in place to meet the safeguarding and welfare requirements. Management carry out checks for all staff and students regarding their suitability and thorough recruitment procedures are in place. Safeguarding is a high priority. Management attend training on a variety of aspects of safeguarding and amend their procedures to reflect this knowledge. Safeguarding policies and procedures are frequently reviewed and revised, reflecting the management's increasing knowledge and experience and include procedures to follow to ensure children's safety in a wide variety of situations. Rigorous systems are in place to ensure that all staff attend and refresh their safeguarding training. Staff demonstrate a very secure understanding and awareness of safeguarding procedures and their individual responsibilities.

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provision

The leadership and management ensure the safety of the premises with electronic locks and staff control access and monitor visitors to the premises. Procedures to move children quickly from outdoor play areas into the safety and security of the building are in place and staff are familiar with them. Staff deal with accidents efficiently because the majority of staff have current first aid training and first aid kits are readily accessible. Staff are vigilant about potential hazards, recording them in near miss records; staff take action to prevent accidents keeping children safe. In addition, management monitor accident records, enabling them to identify areas or resources of high risk.

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provision

Staff enthuse about the behaviour management training that they have attended and explain how this has increased their knowledge and confidence in setting clear expectations and supporting children to behave extremely well.

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provision

The staff have an extremely good understanding of their responsibilities in meeting the learning and development requirements. They have high expectation of all children and work enthusiastically to support all children in reaching their full potential. The robust monitoring and evaluation of the balance of their educational programme using progress records for groups of children ensures that staff plan activities that cover all areas of learning.

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provision

Highly effective use is made of local specialist teachers, such as a music teacher. In addition to sessions with the children, the teacher supports staff in delivering music throughout the week. The setting uses a wide variety of ways to share information and work in partnership with parents, including their parents' forum. Highly effective partnerships between the childcare centre, parents and other agencies enable them to work together to identify and meet children's needs well.

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provision

The leadership and management ethos is to constantly reflect and improve practice. They encourage and support staff in making justifiable changes to routine and trial their impact on children's experiences in attempts to improve learning. Regular focused staff meetings and supervision sessions with staff enable the staff group to identify areas for improvement and training needs. These practices demonstrate the setting's capacity for continual improvement.

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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 EY472262 Local authority Cornwall Inspection number 946350 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 7 Total number of places 93 Number of children on roll 181 Name of provider First Steps Cornwall Ltd Date of previous inspection not applicable Telephone number 01637 877073

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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

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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