Old Station Nursery

Old Station Nursery 7 Park Road, Faringdon, Oxfordshire, SN7 7BP

p.1

Inspection date

Previous inspection date 31/10/2014 24/05/2011

p.1

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

p.1

This provision is outstanding

 Children thrive in the stimulating and nurturing environment. They are confident, well motivated, and have formed excellent bonds with their key person.  Children benefit from much attentive, individual support from committed staff that fully encourages them to learn and develop.  Carefully considered organisation of the environment with clear pictorial signs, labelling and accessible storage enables children to be independent. Children make choices from the wide range of resources available and explore their environment in safety.  Parents are fully engaged in their children's learning. Staff share children's targets and next steps, offering suggestions for parents to support children's learning at home.  There is strong leadership and management, and a committed team of staff. The continual drive for improvement, alongside a targeted programme of professional development, means that staff are constantly improving their skills and practice to

p.1

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

p.2

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.

p.2

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.

p.2

Inspection activities

 The inspector observed children playing throughout the nursery.  The inspector spoke with the manager, operations manager and several staff.

p.2

Inspection activities

 The inspector sampled the nursery's records including staff suitability, self- evaluations and children's records.  The inspector carried out a joint observation with the manager.  The inspector took into account the views of parents spoken to on the day.

p.2

Information about the setting

Old Station Nursery registered in 2002.. It is one of 15 nurseries owned by the same proprietor. It operates from two buildings on the site of the converted former railway station in Faringdon, Oxfordshire. The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register and both the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. Children are accommodated across three different areas, according to age. They have access to an enclosed outdoor play area. Children attend from the local urban community and surrounding rural area. The nursery receives funding for the provision of free early education for children aged two, three and four years.. Currently, there are 109 children on roll in the early years age range. The nursery is each weekday from 8am to 6pm throughout the year, with the exception of a week at Christmas. Children attend for a variety of sessions, including part time. Additionally, the nursery offers both before and

p.3

Information about the setting

after-school care for school-aged children up to eight years. The nursery offers an after- school club from Monday to Thursday from 3.15pm until 6pm, term time only. Play schemes run during school holidays, dependent on demand. The nursery employs 17 staff of whom 14 work with the children. One member of staff holds a recognised early years qualification at level 5.

p.3

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

 consider ways to extend the existing relationships with local schools in order to support further the older children in their move into school.

p.3

who attend

Staff have an excellent understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage learning and development requirements. They have an excellent knowledge of how children learn and place a strong emphasis on helping children acquire the skills to be ready for the next stage in their learning. Consequently, children flourish in the challenging and inspiring environment. The quality of teaching is excellent. Staff interact positively with children continually enhancing children's learning and development.

p.3

who attend

Staff skilfully promote children's communication and language development through play activities and circle times. Younger children listened attentively to a story. They actively engaged matching the animal puppets with the story. Staff used lots of repetition of the words, drawing each child into the activity. Older children confidently shared their experiences of recent dreams with a small group of children. Staff gave children plenty of time to recall their memories and retell their story. These activities successfully promote children's speaking and listening skills and widen their vocabulary. Staff reflect on their practice throughout the day. They share ideas and modify plans with each other by noting children's interests. For example, they provide the ingredients and tools to make strawberry milk shakes and use the opportunity to build on children's knowledge of good hygiene, healthy eating and safety. Staff later extend this to a creative activity where

p.3

who attend

children learn about how germs spread. Children thoroughly enjoy getting involved with this as they spread paint around and then carefully washed it all off. As a result, children consolidate their learning well.

p.4

who attend

Staff know children extremely well. They recognise that younger children like fitting toys into slots. Staff provided a range of shape-sorter toys and made a slotted box to extend this interest encouraging the children to post and retrieve. The younger children enjoyed exploring the variety of shapes and sizes, and the feel of objects. Staff interaction enabled a wider range of children to benefit from the activity and extended children's interest in hiding and finding things. Children at the nursery have plenty of opportunity to explore through their senses. Babies enjoyed discovering shredded paper in a box and soon delighted in moving this around the room. Staff extended the activity by hiding favourite toys for them to find which captured their interest for some time. Older children were engrossed in messy play with a cornflour and water mixture developing their early writing skills as they used their fingers to make marks.

p.4

who attend

Staff organise routines so that children are able to spend good stretches of time on activities of their choice, which helps to deepen children's learning. Consequently, children are motivated, keen to learn and eagerly join in the activities. Staff provide a stimulating outdoor play environment which engages and challenges the children. The children demonstrated that they are keen to persevere and solve problems. They worked together as they explored how to balance some guttering on the water tray and pour the water to help the toys move from one end to another. Staff skilfully extend children's mathematical learning during play. For example, staff used children's interest in insects to encourage them to count and compare the number of legs the insects have.

p.4

who attend

Staff use assessment very successfully to monitor and track children's progress. This is through the digital learning records, containing photographs and ongoing observations, which include valuable contributions from parents. Planning of play activities is successful because staff focus on children's interests and the individual next steps in their learning. As a result, children make rapid gains in their learning and development. Staff actively involve parents in their children's learning by giving secure access to children's digital learning records. Parents contribute meaningful comments on their children's development and of how they are supporting children at home. Staff offer guidance on the ways parents can follow on what children learn at nursery. This productive partnership supports children's learning and development extremely well.

p.4

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

Children thrive in the calm and nurturing environment. The staff are skilled at meeting children's needs and supporting all children to settle. There are effective key-person systems, which mean that all children form secure attachments. The supportive ethos means that children become self-reliant, self-confident and socially aware, preparing them exceptionally well for their future learning. Staff actively encourage children to learn to do things for themselves, such as serving their own food at lunch time. Children eagerly help themselves and demonstrate that they are aware of the other children's needs as they pass the food around the table to each other.

p.4

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

The excellent range of play activities and child-accessible resources successfully promote children's learning indoors and outdoors. For example, babies selected utensils to explore and manipulate cooked spaghetti during outside play. Older children confidently went off to fetch magnifying glasses so that they could examine spiders in more detail. Children become fully engrossed in their chosen activity and play together well with their friends. They show consideration towards others during their play activities, such as being mindful of their friend's safety when they are throwing fir cones.

p.5

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

Staff give high priority to children's safety. They complete comprehensive risk assessments, including additional checks for the various outings they go on. This enables them to identify and minimise risks to children. Staff teach children about hazards and help them to assess risks for themselves. For example, staff encourage children to say what might be dangerous when they cross a road and to think what to do to make it safer. Staff have high expectations of children and use effective strategies to encourage positive behaviour. Staff teach children to listen to instructions and be attentive. Consequently, children respond very quickly demonstrating that they have understood what staff have asked of them. Staff supervise the children well and they recognise the importance of encouraging children's sense of exploration and risk taking, while giving children clear boundaries as they use the climbing equipment. Children concentrate as

p.5

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

they climb and carefully move their hands and feet showing that they understand how to keep themselves safe. Staff promote children's good health very well. They recognise the importance of daily outdoor active play and children play outside for much of the day. Children enjoy a good variety of healthy and nutritious snacks which are cooked on the premises.

p.5

provision

The management and staff team is highly professional and committed to providing the very best service for children and their families. They all have an excellent understanding of the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Robust procedures are in place to ensure that safeguarding children has the highest priority in the nursery. The manager and her staff have regular training so that they keep their knowledge up to date. Consequently, they are able to take prompt and effective action to support children. Carefully considered policies underpin high quality staff practice to promote children's welfare. The manager regularly reviews the policies and procedures and discusses any updates with staff to keep them informed. Parents are consulted on policies and also kept informed of any changes by providing them with copies of the updated policies. Rigorous recruitment systems for vetting new staff ensure their suitability to work with

p.5

provision

children. This includes the thorough checking and suitability of each member of staff, prior to them working unsupervised with children. The manager further strengthens this by close monitoring of staff practice through observations. Staffing ratios are high and staff supervise children extremely well at all times. Staff risk assess all areas daily to identify and minimise potential hazards. Accurate records for registration, accidents, incidents and medication further promote children's welfare. All children participate in regular evacuation drills with staff so that they are aware of how to leave the premises safely in the event of an emergency. A highly effective key-person system ensures that all children benefit from the additional security and reassurance of staff who know them extremely well. For example, staff share with each other what their key children like to do when they settle at the start of the day and what they are learning next. These systems promote children's

p.6

provision

well-being and help create a safe environment.

p.6

provision

The senior staff are extremely enthusiastic about providing high quality care and learning opportunities. This creates a keen culture of continuous professional development. Self- evaluation is securely embedded in the culture of ongoing improvement and includes the views of all staff, parents and children. The nursery also uses additional tools to audit the quality of provision and the environment. This process provides an excellent opportunity for staff to expand their knowledge, skills and expertise. The team has successfully addressed the recommendations from the previous inspection by improving accessibility of resources indoors and outside. The drive for improvement is sharply targeted according to the needs of the children who attend. For example, the tracking of the children's progress helped the manager to identify staff training needs. This has included local authority training on provision for two-year-old children, and speech and language training to

p.6

provision

support further children who may have a delay.

p.6

provision

The nursery has developed highly effective links with a variety of other professionals supporting children and their families. This ensures that children receive timely and appropriate support to meet their individual needs and to promote inclusion. Effective partnerships have been developed with the key local schools that the children will transfer to. However, there is scope to extend this to more consistently share knowledge and good practice to support children's future move to school. Partnership with parents is excellent. Parents speak very highly of the nursery and are impressed with the wealth of knowledge that staff have about their children. Parents stated they particularly value the individual support their children receive and the ideas to continue their children's learning at home. Staff share detailed information about the children's development with parents through daily discussions, parent evenings, newsletters and an online system.

p.6

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

p.6

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

p.7

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.

p.7

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.

p.8

Setting details

Unique reference number EY218342 Local authority Oxfordshire Inspection number 837019 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 8 Total number of places 65 Number of children on roll 109 Name of provider The Old Station Nursery Ltd Date of previous inspection 24/05/2011 Telephone number 01367 243800

p.8

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.

p.8

Type of provision

For the purposes of this inspection the following definitions apply:

p.8

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.

p.8

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.

p.8

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.

p.9

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,

p.9

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’.

p.10

Type of provision

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.ofsted.gov.uk

p.10