Melrose House Nursery School

Melrose House Nursery School 39 Melrose Road, LONDON, SW18 1LX

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 14/11/2014 02/12/2008

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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

 Children's needs are exceptionally well met through effective partnerships between the nursery, parents, and other outside agencies.  Children are stimulated and constantly busy in active and meaningful play. As a result they make excellent progress across all areas of learning, and support for children's additional needs is exemplary.  The children benefit significantly from having a wealth of resources to use, and excellent guidance and teaching from dedicated staff.  An experienced and highly qualified staff team are headed by an extremely experienced inspirational leader who fully involves parents, children and other agencies in their continuous drive for improvement.

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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 and spoke to children during their play in the two playrooms as well as the outdoor play area.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector had a discussion with the manager and spoke with members of the staff team as appropriate.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at all relevant documentation, including the safeguarding policy, accident records and risk assessments.  The inspector took part in a joint observation with the manager of the nursery.

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Information about the setting

Melrose House Nursery School first registered in 1991 and re-registered as a limited company, under the same ownership, in 2008. The nursery is located on the ground floor of a detached house in the West Hill area in the London Borough of Wandsworth. Children are cared for in two playrooms and there are toilets and kitchen facilities nearby. Children have access to an enclosed patio and garden area for outdoor play. The nursery is open during term time only. Sessions are from 9.15am to 12.15pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the sessions are from 9.15am to 3pm. The nursery supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities as well as children who speak English as an additional language. The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register, the compulsory part of the Childcare Register and the voluntary part of the Childcare Register. There are currently 24 children on roll in the early years age group.

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Information about the setting

There are five members of staff including the manager. All staff hold relevant qualifications in childcare at levels 2,3 and 6. The nursery has a pet dog.

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

 enrich children's already varied educational programmes and experiences by engaging more with specialised visiting teaching staff to further enhance learning outcomes for every child.

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who attend

Children thrive and reach very high levels of achievement in their learning and development in this vibrant nursery. This is because all children have realistically targeted learning goals and have the excellent support of a very skilled and qualified staff team. All staff are professional, extremely enthusiastic and deliver very high quality teaching practices and educational programmes for children. This ensures every child makes rapid progress, given their varied, diverse starting points and educational needs.

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who attend

During the inspection, all children were seen to be extremely happy and content, engaging busily during free play and adult-led activities. For example, children showed considerable excitement when throwing and collecting balls during Teddy Tennis. This activity supported the children's physical development particularly well. They extended their moving and handling skills as well as their ability to play and work together as a team. Staff also challenged children's understanding of letters skilfully during singing sessions using a phonics system. Consequently, all children confidently recognised their names. Some children were able to identify the early sounds of letters for reading, providing them with excellent skills for future learning at school. Children embrace the love of books through regularly reading with staff and taking books home to continue their learning with their parents and/or carers.

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who attend

During the inspection, children demonstrated a high degree of physical ability outside, on the large patio area. They rode on cars and organised the apparatus skilfully on which they climbed. Children helped themselves to water and could be seen planning and arranging tools such as sponges and brushes, which they used to paint their playhouse. During a mathematics activity children clearly demonstrated a thorough understanding of numbers. They jumped on stepping stones, very confidently relating numbers to actions with meaning. Photographs and documentation show that children regularly use the wider natural areas of the garden where they develop their explorative play in an extremely purposeful and meaningful way. For example, they design and build dens, gain physical agility and acquire risk-taking skills as they climb trees, and collect apples in the autumn.

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who attend

All children look forward to and are included in focused sessions for music, drama and tennis by visiting teachers. Staff participate in these activities to monitor their key children and support their needs.

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who attend

Staff's accurate planning encompasses children's ideas and interests comprehensively. Staff record these in detail on the weekly reviews and convert children's ideas and interests into activities that cover all areas of learning. Consequently, children are extremely excited and eager to learn. Staff carry out detailed regular assessments of what children do and the formal assessments clearly show how exceptionally well the children are progressing. The staff's detailed assessments also enable them to rapidly identify areas where children need extra support. Children with identified special educational needs and/or disabilities have comprehensive personalised learning plans. Staff follow these extremely well to support children and ensure they make as much progress as they can.

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who attend

An exceptionally strong partnership with parents underpins children's achievements. Parents are fully involved with their child's learning and regularly discuss their child's progress with their key person. Parents' high expectations for their children enthusiastically drive progress. They provide valuable information about what their children do at home and suggest new ideas for activities within the nursery. As a result, children are extremely well supported in their learning programmes, which prepares them for their next stages when they transfer to school.

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

Children quickly settle and are very excited to attend the nursery school. This is because of the highly effective settling-in programme in place. The key person and the manager take time to get to know all the children and their families very well. This starts with the sharing of useful information about the children that enables the key person to make each child feel special and welcome. Children demonstrate through their behaviour that they are extremely happy and content in the nursery and build extremely positive relationships with staff and each other. Children take considerable pride in sharing their birthday celebrations, singing and clapping together to acknowledge a child's birthday. While playing outdoors the children worked exceptionally well together as they used water to paint the playhouse, offering a brush so another child could join in.

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

Children's enthusiasm for learning through play is evident throughout the nursery. They have immense fun with the wealth of high quality resources and learn exceptional skills in their behaviour in playing with their new friends. Children show politeness and ability to make decisions in their play activities. Consequently, children have a very high standard in their behaviour as they feel in control and fully engage in their learning. Children learn about diversity by exploring the customs and cultures of others in annual events. Recently, children learnt about the meaning of poppies to remember brave people. These activities help children to recognise and understand the needs of others in the world around them.

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

Children's health and safety is a priority in this efficiently run nursery. Children learn consistent and thorough messages about safety through their daily activities and the nursery's routines. During the inspection, staff helped children to set up a traffic-light system to help to extend their already good safety awareness when riding their bicycles and cars outside. Children enjoyed creating paintings about fireworks to celebrate the annual occasion while also learning about the hazards of fire. Children also learn about the importance of speedy and calm fire evacuation procedures as they practise these on a regular basis.

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

Children develop rapid independence in their personal hygiene using the easily accessible toilets and hand-washing facilities. Staff talk about healthy eating and work collaboratively with parents in ensuring children bring nutritious snacks for their morning break. This means children develop very healthy lifestyles and learn about the importance of healthy eating. During the inspection, children settled quickly with their individual snack packs while they shared discussions with staff about their activities. This supports children's strong social skills. Children also learnt about growth through excellent first-hand experiences by tending garden vegetables and potting up strawberry plants, which they took home to give them responsibility of continuing the care of plants at home.

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provision

The manager/owner of this nursery has a wealth of experience and knowledge of the welfare and learning requirements. Extremely rigorous recruitment procedures ensure all staff are vetted to make sure they are suitable to work with children. The nursery follows robust induction and on-going supervision practices to ensure staff fully understand their roles and responsibilities and are vigilant in the protection of children.

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provision

The manager monitors staff practice exceptionally well, ensuring staff attend relevant safeguarding training. The clearly rigorous systems in place ensure that all staff, including students, understand their individual responsibilities to protect children. Staff have a very secure understanding of who to contact within the local authority to report concerns if the manager is not available to take action. The manager consistently provides support, advice and guidance to all staff. She does this by being always available for them as well as giving them regular supervision and weekly staff meetings. As a result, children's welfare and well-being are exceptionally well promoted. Staff use risk assessments very effectively to keep children safe. All children's play areas are very safe and staff's excellent deployment ensures children have their support and guidance instantly to hand.

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provision

The manager has an excellent overview of the educational programmes. She has not yet fully considered how the extra activities run by external teaching staff can be used to enrich learning outcomes for children even further. The manager participates in, and rigorously monitors, each child's progress through the supervision of her staff team. The staff's completion of the required progress check for two-year-old children is a particularly thorough process that involves parents at every level. This ensures that the staff quickly identify any child who needs extra support, as well as meeting the needs of children who are excelling in their learning.

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provision

Self-evaluation is at the core of everything the nursery does. The manager has a very strong partnership with the local authority advisor to evaluate the level of children's engagement. The whole staff team then takes ownership of this and works efficiently to make identified changes to raise standards even further. The opinions of parents, visitors, and other professionals who become involved in the nursery also provide a very valuable benchmark on the nursery's effectiveness. They also provide the manager with ideas for the future which the staff rigorously address as part of their plans for improvement. The strength of the partnership with parents means that all children make excellent progress. Parents also have their independent forum with a parent coordinator to feed back the views and wishes of all. As a result, enthusiastic parents help to create an inclusive nursery environment where everyone is working together to provide excellent outcomes

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provision

The highly successful systems the manager uses to ensure strong liaisons with health and other outside agencies are very effective to support children's progress. All staff carefully follow, and add to individual educational plans for children identified with special educational needs. This ensures the needs of every child are comprehensively supported and met. Parents enthusiastically state that they have complete trust in the staff's professionalism and compliment their sincere passion for the excellent work they do.

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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. 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 EY369321 Local authority Wandsworth Inspection number 829122 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 8 Total number of places 24 Number of children on roll 24 Name of provider Melrose House Nursery Schools Ltd Date of previous inspection 02/12/2008 Telephone number 02088747769

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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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