Hawthorns Private Day Nursery Limited

Hawthorn Private Day Nursery 57a Station Road, Skelmanthorpe, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD8 9AU

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 29/08/2014 03/09/2009

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early years provision

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

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This provision is outstanding

 Staff throughout the nursery have a first class knowledge and understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage and, consequently, teaching is excellent. Staff identify children's starting points precisely and plan very engaging experiences for them across all areas of learning. As a result, children make rapid progress in their learning and development.  The manager has put highly effective systems in place to support staff. This means that they provide superb care and learning opportunities for children.  Partnerships with parents are consistently strong, enabling staff and parents to work very closely together for the benefit of all children attending the nursery.  Children are exceptionally well safeguarded because staff have a very thorough knowledge of their responsibilities. This is evident through the robust practices that successfully promote children's safety and well-being.  Children are extremely well prepared to move on to their next stage in learning.

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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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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed staff engaging in a range of indoor and outdoor play and learning activities, and daily care routines with the children.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector talked to children and staff, and also held discussions with the manager during the inspection.  The inspector undertook a joint observation with the manager of the nursery.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at children's assessment records and at their learning journals. The inspector also reviewed planning documentation, evidence of suitability of staff working in the setting, the provider's self-evaluation systems and a range of other supporting documentation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector also took account of the views of parents spoken to on the day of the inspection and feedback from parents obtained from the manager of the nursery.

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Information about the setting

Hawthorns Private Day Nursery was registered on the Early Years Register in 2005 and is privately owned. It operates in a detached property in Skelmanthorpe. Children are accommodated in four rooms on two floors, with access to outdoor areas. There are currently 66 children on roll in the early years age range. Children attend for a variety of sessions. The nursery receives funding for the provision of free early education for two-, three- and four-year-olds. It supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. It is open each weekday from 7.30am to 6pm throughout the year. There are currently 14 staff working directly with the children, including the nursery owner. Of these, 12 hold an appropriate early years qualification at level 3 or above and one holds level 2. The nursery owner has Early Years Professional status.

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

 enhance children's already excellent learning experiences by providing even greater opportunities for newer members of staff to reflect on their practice and learn from more experienced staff.

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who attend

The inspiring teaching has an excellent impact on children's progress and learning because staff have high expectations of children and motivate them very successfully to learn. Comprehensive information is gathered from parents when children first begin at the nursery, and provides staff with a clear baseline for their learning. The highly skilled staff draw on their significant knowledge to carry out detailed and precise observations of children. They assess children's progress from their starting points and identify the very best ways to support their learning and provide individualised play opportunities to enhance their progress. Developmental records are updated on a regular basis and activities are planned using children's next steps learning as a guide. Staff consult children about their interests and shape planning around these. As a result, activities are extremely well matched to their needs and they make rapid progress in their development. Staff

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who attend

throughout the nursery use information gathered from detailed observations of children's learning and consultations with parents, to inform detailed summative reports and the progress check for children between the ages of two and three years. They provide an extremely broad range of highly interesting and challenging experiences that meet the needs of all who attend, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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who attend

Staff plan specific adult-led activities to foster particular skills in children. For example, they plan games that will encourage babies to walk and balance. Staff gently urge babies to keep trying and clap loudly with joy when they succeed in their endeavours. Staff quickly notice when babies are becoming bored and recapture their interest by making scrunching sounds with rice cereals contained in a large flat tray on the floor. When babies notice the exciting sounds and crawl towards them, staff encourage them to explore further for themselves. Babies enjoy the sensations of popping the puffed rice and climb inside the tray to explore further. In this way, staff support babies to make excellent progress in their early learning. Staff place a high priority of supporting children's language development. They emphasise key vocabulary and repeat these words frequently, ensuring that they speak clearly and directly to children. Staff use the words in

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who attend

context so that children see the objects staff are referring to. This means that children rapidly learn new words and consolidate their learning. Staff build children's social skills by encouraging them to make eye contact and singing naming songs when they gather together for group activities. Staff use these techniques frequently and children join in. As a result, children develop their awareness of other people.

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who attend

Staff are careful to build on children's successes and provide increasing complexity in small steps. This builds children's confidence in their abilities and they make rapid progress as a result. For example, staff support children to learn to count through daily activities, asking children when they play with cars how many there. When their friends join them in their play, staff seize the opportunity for children to learn to share at the same time as learning concepts such as 'more' or 'less'. Staff have highly effective ways of fostering a love of reading and books amongst the children that they care for. Staff have lively reading styles, using a variety of voices and actions to bring the characters to life and create an atmosphere. As a result, children are highly engaged and interact with the storyteller and each other, showing their excitement and interest. Children spontaneously settle with a

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who attend

book in their independent play, and enjoy sharing books.

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who attend

Staff enable children to be highly creative and expressive, and they become absorbed and fully engaged in the variety of activities on offer. With staff's positive encouragement, children are keen to experiment. They enthusiastically mix colours to see what new colours they can create and talk confidently about which they like best. Staff are consistently at hand to give them guidance to further consolidate their learning. Staff encourage children to be active learners and to talk about, and reflect on, their experiences. Consequently, children are extremely well prepared for the next stage of their learning and for starting school. Children greatly benefit from opportunities to be independent, active learners in all seven areas of learning.

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

Staff build very strong and robust relationships with children, who rapidly settle into their nursery. Staff know children and their families extremely well and provide a well- established routine, which helps children to feel secure and confident to separate from their parents. Each room has a doll or stuffed animal that children can take home with them, together with a book. Parents write in this, describing the doll's adventures while at home. This simple device strengthens very effectively the connections between home and nursery. Children enjoy exploring the learning and environment at nursery and are soon confident to experiment and challenge themselves with new experiences. Staff have established a highly effective learning environment, both indoors and out. Children can easily access a wide range of enticing activities. Staff vary the indoor and outdoor environment so that children are constantly stimulated and challenged. Children benefit

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

from playing in the fresh air every day and enjoy a wide variety of opportunities to build their physical skills. Staff provide exemplary support for children to explore equipment safely, watching vigilantly as children climb up on the tall pirate ship outside. They ensure that children wear helmets as they learn new physical skills on the balance bikes. Staff help children identify the herbs in the garden through touch and smell.

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

Children have excellent opportunities to enjoy a healthy lifestyle in the nursery. They pour their own drinks and enjoy eating a wide variety of fruit and learn to cut their fruit safely, building their self-care skills. Children adopt excellent hygiene routines, supported by gentle prompts from staff to wash their hands before meals. The nursery employs a cook and has achieved a level 5 food hygiene award. Children benefit from a superb range of healthy, home-cooked meals. such as turkey, Yorkshire pudding and fresh vegetables. Young babies' independence is encouraged through a growing emphasis within the nursery on baby-led weaning methods.

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

Children's behaviour is excellent. They are consistently engaged in purposeful play throughout their time in the nursery and enjoy taking part in routines, such as tidying up. Children make exceptional progress in developing their social skills and are confident to take part in group activities. Children understand how to take turns and cooperate with each other because they hear clear, consistent messages from staff. This means that children understand boundaries and know what is expected of them. Children's well-being is given the utmost priority to ensure individual care needs are met effectively at all times. Diversity is celebrated and children learn to value and respect the differences between people. Staff very effectively match routines to provide consistency for all children. Those with additional needs have specific plans in place ensuring their care needs are fully understood and met. Very comprehensive systems are in place to support children moving

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

within rooms in the nursery and parents are fully involved. Liaison between staff in different rooms is impressive. This careful preparation means that children only move on when they are ready to do so. This results in extremely smooth transitions. Children learn to be confident when moving to a new environment and are therefore fully prepared to move on to their next stage of learning.

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provision

Children's safety is given the highest priority by everyone working at the nursery. Meticulous risk assessments are conducted and reviewed on all aspects of the provision. Safeguarding and their role and responsibilities relating to it are fully understood by all staff. They attend regular refresher training. Safeguarding policies, procedures and practice are regularly discussed in team meetings and staff are encouraged to consider what they would do if particular scenarios occurred. Staff are therefore extremely well prepared and confident to deal with any potentially demanding situations or to respond in the event of an emergency. The owner, who is the manager of the nursery, sets herself and her staff extremely high aspirations for quality. Her accurate identification of priorities through self-evaluation and implementing these, produces continuous improvement to the quality of the provision. For

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provision

example, she ensures that all staff are provided with regular opportunities to reflect on their skills and practice through supervision. She also uses these supervision sessions to comprehensively review all children's learning journals together with their key person. She ensures that all children's progress is precisely monitored and tracked. Any emerging issues of concern regarding children's progress are therefore quickly identified and ways forward are discussed with parents. As a result, all children are expertly supported in making the best progress possible and educational programmes develop to ensure they always provide optimal challenge for all children. An unexpectedly high staff turnover of staff has lead to a strong focus on supporting new staff to develop high levels of reflective practice and learn from more experienced staff. Robust recruitment practices combined with an extensive period of induction ensure a strong, motivated staff team who work

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provision

together exceptionally well. Performance management through staff meetings and appraisals, including observations of staff's performance, ensures that strengths and good practice are highlighted and celebrated. The manager provides excellent opportunities for staff to undertake training together as a group, which provides further opportunities for staff to learn together to develop their skills. For example, staff recently undertook group training on the characteristics of learning. As a result, staff are even more confident to provide the best environment to stimulate children's learning.

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provision

Partnerships with parents are very strong and they are frequently asked for their views in a wide variety of ways regarding developments in the nursery. Parents have many opportunities to be involved in their children's learning. They are invited to parents' evenings and open days. Parents report with confidence that their children are making excellent progress while at the nursery. They say they feel very involved in their children's learning and appreciate the support and advice they receive from staff to enable them to help their children at home. The manager ensures that there are highly effective relationships in place with other providers of early years education. She takes part in relevant forums to share best practice. The nursery has very good links with its feeder schools, which results in highly successful transition arrangements to support children moving on to school.

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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. We re-inspect nurseries and pre-schools judged as requires improvement within 12 months of the date of 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

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Grade Judgement Description

is not meeting the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. It will be monitored and inspected again within six months of the date of this inspection. Met There were no children present at the time of the inspection. The inspection judgement is that the provider continues to meet the requirements for registration. Not met There were no children present at the time of the inspection. 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 EY316467 Local authority Kirklees Inspection number 862230

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Type of provision

Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 5 Total number of places 52 Number of children on roll 66 Name of provider Hawthorn Private Day Nursery Partnership Date of previous inspection 03/09/2009 Telephone number 01484 861 393

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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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