Forest Hill Nursery

Forest Hill Nursery Living Springs International Church, 8-10 Devonshire Road, LONDON, SE23 3TJ

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 04/11/2014 07/02/2013

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early years provision

This inspection: 3 Previous inspection: 4 How well the early years provision meets the needs of the range of children who attend The contribution of the early years provision to the well-being of children 3 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 3

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This provision requires improvement

 Relationships between staff and children are warm, and support children's emotional development appropriately.  Children play and learn in a safe and secure environment.  Staff follow children's interests and children enjoy playing with the staff.

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It is not yet good because

 Staff do not ensure children have daily opportunities to outdoor areas to support their health.  Staff assessments of children's learning are not fully used to plan challenging next steps in their development.  Staff do not fully extend babies play by providing a range of natural resources for them to explore.  Staff are not consistently raising children's awareness of early mathematics by discussing shapes, sizes and the purpose of numbers to enrich their play activities.

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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 looked at documentation, including children's profiles and records, and a selection of policies and procedures.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed activities in the children's rooms and carried out two joint observations of activities with the manager.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector spoke with the provider, and manager as well as staff and children at appropriate times throughout the day.  The inspector had the opportunity to talk to parents during the day.

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Information about the setting

Forest Hill Nursery registered in 2012 and is privately owned. It operates from church premises in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is located on the main road, close to Forest Hill main line train station. The nursery operates all year round from 8am to 6pm. Children have the use of two halls that are situated on the first and second floors. There are no facilities for outside play. The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register and there are 28 children in the early years age range attending. The nursery supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and children who learn English as an additional language. There are 10 members of staff, all of whom are qualified to levels two and three in childcare.

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must:

 ensure planning systems are sufficiently robust, and plan challenging experiences for each child based on their current skills and abilities.

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must:

 ensure that outdoor activities are planned and taken on a daily basis

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

 further enhance children's understanding of early mathematics by raising their awareness of shapes and the purpose of numbers in their environment.

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

 widen the exploratory play for babies by providing a range of natural resources to enrich their curiosity and play experiences

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who attend

Overall, children have access to a range of interesting resources. They enjoy learning through play, entering happily and choosing what they wish to do from the range of toys and activities that staff offer. Children display growing independence and have a positive attitude towards learning. When children start, staff gather information from the parents about their child's daily routines and what they like to do at home. This enables staff to help children settle and provide them with some consistency in their learning from home to nursery. Staff continue to teach, observe, and assess the children's progress while they play and record their observations. However, staff do not consistently use the information they note to accurately plan appropriate activities to support what children need to learn next. For example, staff correctly identify that babies need more challenges to move their bodies to support their physical development and curiosity. However, during the inspection

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who attend

some staff spent time cuddling the babies and offering them toys on their laps, which restricted the babies' development in this area. Furthermore, staff working with the babies do not fully develop their curiosity by providing natural resources for the babies to investigate and explore. This limits the range of textures, smells and visual experiences to promote babies learning. Consequently, the children make steady progress rather than good. The staff complete the progress check for two year old children to assess their progress between the ages of two and three years of age. They organise meetings to discuss the outcomes with parents. As a result staff are identifying and addressing any gaps in children's learning by working with parents. Parents confirm they are happy with the service that staff provide. They say staff are caring and offer flexible care to meet their child's needs. Parents have opportunities to discuss their children's achievements at

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who attend

pick up or drop off time and at parents' evenings.

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who attend

Staff promote children's communication and language skills suitably. Staff demonstrate appropriate teaching methods to support children's emerging speaking though songs and rhymes. Staff constantly chat and interact with children, which helps children to learn some new words. However, staff do not make best use of opportunities to raise children's early awareness of mathematics. For example, during a painting activity children repeated colours well showing their knowledge. However, staff did not challenge children's understanding of the differences in shapes and sizes that children make in their pictures. Staff count with children while going up and down the stairs but; do not introduce children to use numbers with a purpose to enhance all areas of their creative play.

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who attend

Children are developing their physical skills generally well; they are handling resources, such as crayons, pencils, paints and spreaders. They regularly use the upstairs hall to exercise using slides, ride on toys and practise their skills playing with sand and water.

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

Staff have a caring relationship with children, who form strong attachments to their key person and familiar adults. Consequently, children separate from their parents well and settle quickly with staff support. When children moved on to their reception class staff complete final assessments of their progress and share these with the parents. Staff also send a copy of the assessment to the children's school to aid teachers during children's early stages of settling into their reception class.

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

Children play in a calm, relaxed and safe environment. Staff reinforce clear rules and boundaries, which helps children understand how they should behave. Staff also adapt methods of promoting positive behaviour appropriate to the age and stage of development of each child. Staff encourage children to share toys and staff give children regular praise to support their self-esteem. Staff promote children's independence as they access their own play materials and older children are beginning to learn skills with regard to personal hygiene. This promotes children's health awareness. Children know they can help themselves to water during the day when they are thirsty and meals are freshly prepared. Children also have a nutritious range of fruit snacks, which also supports their healthy eating. Older children develop good social skills during meal times. They show confidence when serving themselves. However, children's good health is compromised

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

because they do not have daily access to the outside environment to benefit from exercise in the fresh air.

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

Staff demonstrate their regard for children's safety through their safeguarding training. They regularly risk assess all rooms for safety hazards. Staff teach children to be careful while walking up and down the stairs, and how to safely use climbing apparatus. This raises children's safety awareness.

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provision

The provider has not ensured that all the learning and development requirements are met. For example, there is no outside play area available for the children to spend time outside in the fresh air daily. This means that children's health and well-being is not fully supported. Monitoring systems are not fully effective to identify that staff are not using information gathered through observations, and planning to ensure that activities and experiences provide sufficient challenge for all children. For example, staff do not make good use of activities and experiences to extend children's knowledge of mathematical concepts, such as smaller and larger. In addition, staff working with the babies do not provide them with a full range of experiences and resources to develop their small muscle control.

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provision

Staff have a sound knowledge of the safeguarding and welfare requirements. Policies, procedures, and other documentation adequately promote children's health, safety and well-being. Staff collect dietary and medical information to ensure children are well cared for. Staff demonstrate their sound understanding of safeguarding issues and have appropriate procedures in place to make referrals about a child where there is a concern. The nursery systems for recruiting staff are robust, which include obtaining references, Disclosure and Barring Service checks and verification of staff qualifications to ensure their suitability. Staff ensure all external doors are secure; visitors are required to sign in and systems for registering children are thorough.

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provision

The manager regularly works alongside her staff and is a suitable role model. This enables her to sufficiently assess staff performance and monitor the educational provision for children. The manager has recently put in place systems to carry out performance management of all staff. However, this has not yet resulted in consistent performance from all staff to enable continuous quality improvement within the nursery. The manager is aware of the areas for improvement and has plans to develop staff skills in assessment and planning for individual children. The manager is extremely approachable. Staff benefit from opportunities to attend meetings, have supervision and access appropriate training to support their continued professional development. The managers reflect on the nursery's practice and are aspiring to make improvements, showing their capacity to sustain their own development. Since the last inspection the

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provision

managers have met the actions set, showing their determination to move forward. They have also completed a comprehensive self-evaluation form showing their plans for the future. However, the use of the self-evaluation process is not fully effective due to areas of weakness identified in practice.

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provision

The nursery managers work effectively in partnership with parents and other professionals to help children with special educational needs and/or disabilities as the need arises. The nursery is well aware of the importance of developing links with other providers of the Early Years Foundation Stage where children attend more than one setting. Consequently, they are in the process of making links with local schools and nurseries in the area to ensure consistency in children's education.

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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 EY446524 Local authority Lewisham Inspection number 952044 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 5 Total number of places 32 Number of children on roll 28 Name of provider Sophia Blankson and Joel Ajala Partnership Date of previous inspection 07/02/2013 Telephone number 02082911960

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Setting details

set out in the guidance ‘Complaints procedure: raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.ofsted.gov.uk. If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk.

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Type of provision

For the purposes of this inspection the following definitions apply:

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Type of provision

Full-time provision is that which operates for more than three hours. These are usually known as nurseries, nursery schools and pre-schools and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage. They are registered on the Early Years Register and pay the higher fee for registration.

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Type of provision

Sessional provision operates for more than two hours but does not exceed three hours in any one day. These are usually known as pre-schools, kindergartens or nursery schools and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage. They are registered on the Early Years Register and pay the lower fee for registration.

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Type of provision

Childminders care for one or more children where individual children attend for a period of more than two hours in any one day. They operate from domestic premises, which are usually the childminder’s own home. They are registered on the Early Years Register and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage.

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Type of provision

Out of school provision may be sessional or full-time provision and is delivered before or after school and/or in the summer holidays. They are registered on the Early Years Register and must deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage. Where children receive their Early Years Foundation Stage in school these providers do not have to deliver the learning and development requirements in full but should complement the experiences children receive in school. achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children's social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, work-based learning and skills training, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked after children,

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Type of provision

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Type of provision

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

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