Playroom Day Nursery

Playroom Day Nursery Playroom Day Nursery, Unit 6a, Sneckyeat Road Industrial Estate, WHITEHAVEN, Cumbria, CA28 8PF

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 17/11/2014 11/07/2014

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early years provision

This inspection: 4 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 4 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 4

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This provision is inadequate

 Occasionally, young children sit alone to have a late lunch due to sleeping routines. During this time, these children are left in the room on their own, which does not ensure their safety when eating.  Managers do not monitor staff and identify when practice is not effective; therefore, children receive inconsistent levels of interaction and challenge.  The supervision of staff to improve their personal effectiveness and to ensure that all staff have a suitable understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage is not in place.  Planning does not contain sufficient information about the next steps in children's learning; therefore, some staff do not know what children need to achieve next to support individual learning effectively.  The strategies used by staff to engage parents and encourage them to contribute their observations of their children's progress or to share news about what their children

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It has the following strengths

 Children are happy and contented. They enjoy themselves and have fun in a warm and welcoming environment.

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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 had a tour of the premises.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed children playing in the baby and toddler room, the main playroom and the outdoor play area.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector held discussions with the both managers, the staff and the children during the inspection.  The inspector completed joint observations with both managers.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector took account of the views of parents who were spoken to on the day of the inspection.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at children's assessment records, the planning documentation, accident records, and the systems for the tracking of children's progress.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector checked evidence of suitability and qualifications of staff working with children, the policies and procedures for the setting, and the documented self- evaluation systems that support the service.

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Information about the setting

Playroom Day Nursery opened in 2011 and is on the Early Years Register and compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. It is managed as a private partnership and operates from a converted industrial unit on an industrial estate close to the hospital, in Whitehaven, Cumbria. The nursery serves the immediate locality and also the surrounding areas. It opens five days a week from 7am until 6pm all year round, except for bank holidays and a week at Christmas. Children attend for a variety of sessions. Children are cared for across four rooms and have access to an enclosed outdoor play area. There are currently 56 children in the early years age range on roll. The nursery receives funding for the provision of free early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. The nursery supports children who speak English as an additional language. There are currently 12 staff employed at the nursery; of these, seven staff who work directly with

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Information about the setting

the children hold appropriate early years qualifications at level 3. The manager holds Qualified Teacher Status. The nursery is a member of the National Day Nurseries Association and receives support from the local authority.

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must:

 use risk assessment effectively to keep babies and young children safe at meal times when they eat on their own and not in a group

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must:

 undertake regular supervision of staff to provide support, coaching and training to improve their personal effectiveness and the quality of teaching and care provided for children

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must:

 ensure all staff are able to support the progress of the children they are working with, for example, by effectively sharing information with each other about the children's next steps in learning

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must:

 provide opportunities for parents to be more involved in their children's learning by improving the exchange of information throughout their children's placement in the nursery and by encouraging them to share their views regarding children's learning and development at home.

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

 foster a culture of continuous improvement by implementing a more thorough and accurate self-evaluation, which includes the views and opinions of others, to set realistic targets and drive future improvement.

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who attend

Children arrive happily at the nursery. They settle quickly in their designated playrooms, where they access a reasonable selection of resources, which the staff have set out. In general, most staff have a reasonable understanding of how to encourage children's learning and demonstrate suitable teaching skills. However, the quality of teaching at the nursery is variable. Not all staff interact sufficiently with the children in order to extend their learning, in particular, their speech, language and thinking skills. Subsequently, not all children are engaged in activities or practical routines, and some lose interest. For example, staff take too much control. As a result, children's independence, choice and decision making during practical routines is limited. Although staff are generally attentive, some lack the confidence and skills to engage and question children as they play. As a result, some staff's interaction with children is limited and there are inconsistencies in the

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who attend

practice across the nursery. Therefore, at times, teaching is weak and does not engage children in learning. For example, children look at books and sing songs in the quiet area with staff, but after a short time they become restless. This is because staff do not involve the children in the story by asking them questions or consider other ways to engage children, for example, by using props. Staff do not always interact with the children, but stand and watch with arms folded, for example, when children are playing in the water tray. Consequently, children are not stimulated or engaged in conversation and do not demonstrate the characteristics of effective learning, such as the motivation to focus on an activity for a period of time. This weak teaching does not prepare children well for the next stage in their learning or for school.

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who attend

Staff provide a sufficient range of resources in all rooms, which reflect children's interests, age and ability. Children take part in a number of creative activities which provide some opportunities for them to use their imaginations. They learn how to use scissors safety and create a collage picture with straws and glue. Babies and toddlers enjoy finding things in the sand, and outdoors older children make sand castles. Babies access a range of natural sensory play materials and discover the different textures of swatches of materials and explore bottles filled with cereals, coloured water and rice. A range of musical sound activity toys sit on shelves around the room so toddling children can walk over to them and help themselves. Physical development is supported outside where children ride on wheeled toys and toddle across the swing bridge. Indoors, children build towers with wooden blocks and knock them down and they manipulate pieces into jigsaw trays as they

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who attend

sort them out with a staff member. Staff encourage children to use their imaginations. They create magical dens with lights inside for children to re-enact recent celebrations. More experienced staff help children develop their mathematical skills to count a selection of cards and sort out a range of jigsaws into their correct boxes. In some activities children's comments are listened to and used to inform future planning. For example, staff explain how during a thunderstorm the children informed them that, 'It is a dinosaur coming to nursery'. So staff incorporated this interest into the planning and used it to develop other activities, such as making a dinosaur egg with paper.

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who attend

Systems for observation, assessment and planning are maintained. Staff observe children as they play. They make notes and place them in the appropriate key person's file. Children's development is assessed by their key person using the Early Years Outcomes document to identify their next steps. Staff generally work in the same room with key children. However, at times staff are deployed in different rooms to meet the staff work patterns and ratios. It is during these times that the staff knowledge of the children they work with is more limited and staff do not know what children's individual learning needs are. Information about children's learning needs is not shared with the staff working with the children, for example, the planning across the nursery does not contain sufficient information about individual children's next steps for staff to follow. As a result, staff do not know children's individual needs well and therefore, they do not provide the

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who attend

appropriate challenge and interaction children require to continue to progress in their individual learning and development. Some consideration is given to how staff support children who speak English as an additional language. For example, staff ask parents for special words children use in their home language to display in the environment so they can they can be used. Staff continue to develop their positive relationship with parents. However, current strategies to engage with parents about their children's learning and development at home are weak and staff mainly focus on care practices. Parents contribute to initial assessments showing children's starting points on entry, although some of these documents are missing in children's files and updated versions are not completed as children get older or move into a new room. There are systems in place to complete the progress check between the ages of two and three years, and this

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who attend

assessment is shared with parents. Although the staff share relevant information with parents about children's learning at the nursery, they do no engage parents to enable an effective two-way sharing of information in order for them to have a complete view of each child's progress.

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

All staff have appointed key children and the details of key persons are displayed in the children's rooms; all children are familiar with the staff caring for them. Staff are warm and welcoming, approachable, and receptive to children's needs. Consequently, children form attachments, which promote their well-being and self-esteem. Children demonstrate that they feel secure and safe, as they independently explore their environment. This promotes children's personal, social and emotional development, as they are learning to form relationships with special people. Furthermore, this helps to emotionally prepare children for their move on to school, as they learn to begin to follow routines during the day.

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

Most staff act as positive role models and children are developing an understanding of acceptable behaviour. Children for the most part play cooperatively together and learn to respect and tolerate each other's differences. This is because staff are polite and respectful. Staff demonstrate how to use appropriate manners, which in turn means that children learn manners. Children develop appropriate levels of self-esteem, because staff praise achievements. Staff manage children's behaviour well and intervene quickly and make their expectations of behaviour clear. As a result, children learn to behave appropriately. Children have access to a range of resources and the learning environment is generally well organised, with a selection of suitable resources. The outdoor environment provides opportunities for children to enjoy daily fresh air and take part in a range of activities to promote their physical development and other areas of learning, such

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

as understanding the world, for example, bug hunting and looking for spiders. Children begin to learn to keep themselves safe and take sensible risks as they independently get in and out of the cars and manoeuvre around the play area.

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

Children are cared for in a safe and secure environment, which staff check each day to ensure any potential hazards or damaged resources are removed. At meal times most children sit together in their respective rooms. However, there are times when young children eat later due to sleep routines. During the inspection, young children are observed alone at the table eating their lunch. They are on their own in the toddler room with no member of staff beside them. The nearest members of staff are in the baby room and main playroom. This compromised children's safety causing a greater risk of choking on food while eating. Meal times for most children are social occasions where they sit with their friends and a staff member. However, children are not always supported in their learning or independent skills at these times. This is initially due to the lack of interaction by staff and the lack of opportunities for children to help themselves.

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provision

Managers demonstrate too little understanding of the learning and development requirements. They do not monitor the educational programmes and staff performance sufficiently to ensure children are provided with enough challenge and that teaching reflects the individual needs and aptitudes of all children. There are also poor systems in place for the monitoring of staff practice and the nursery provision. Leadership and management are weak, and as a result, managers are unaware of the inadequate daily practices of staff and remaining inconsistencies within the setting. Staff demonstrate a sufficient understanding of current safeguarding and child protection procedures. They are aware of the reporting procedure to follow if they have a concern about a child and who to contact if an allegation is made against a member of staff. The child protection policy meets requirements and staff, including the manager, have attended child protection

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provision

training ranging from level 1 to level 3. This ensures that each member of staff has an up- to-date knowledge of safeguarding issues and knows exactly what they must do. A mobile phone and camera policy has been enforced and staff store these securely in the office. Managers maintain risk assessments for the areas children access and for outings and special events. However, they have not considered the safety implications for the times when young children sleep at lunchtime and then eat alone.

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provision

The management follow clear procedures for the recruitment and vetting of staff to ensure the suitability of those in regular contact with the children. All staff hold enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks. All students and new staff are recruited appropriately, supervised in the nursery and suitably checked before working with the children. This ensures that children are safeguarded and protected.

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provision

A full induction takes place to ensure that staff are fully informed of the nursery practices. The management has established regular staff meetings to discuss practice issues and update policies on a rolling programme. However, they do not monitor the consistency of the staff's practice across the nursery. As a result, the effectiveness of teaching techniques and the quality of interaction between the children and staff is variable. Supervision sessions are not in place. Therefore, the performance of individual staff members is not observed and their strengths or areas where they need to improve are not identified and discussed. As a result, where underperformance is an issue, staff are not appropriately supported. Nevertheless, the most experienced members of staff are reasonably confident in their role, to provide suitable support for children to meet their needs and routines. The management team understand the importance of reviewing how individuals and groups of

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provision

children are developing. They collect the information regularly from staff to check that their key children are progressing and there are no gaps in their development. As a result, children in need of additional support are targeted and help from other professionals is obtained.

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provision

Partnerships with parents and professionals are suitably maintained. The management understand the importance of developing close working relationships with schools and other agencies involved in the children's care. Parents comment that their children are happy and they are pleased with the care and service the nursery provides. Since the last inspection the provider has made improvements to information given to parents when their child has an accident, the safety of the environment and equipment and the key person system, making progress with the actions that were set at that inspection. However, the poor monitoring of the nursery provision and staff practice and the lack of self-reflection has resulted in additional weaknesses that are present in the nursery not being identified by the provider, and appropriate action to address these has not been taken. Discussions with staff during the inspection confirm that they are asked to

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provision

contribute to the self-evaluation process and understand where previous specific targets or challenges were set from the last inspection. Although the views of parents are welcomed through informal discussions they are not collected and used effectively to inform improvements. As a result, self-evaluation is not effective and does not help to ensure that continuous improvements are made.

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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 EY437625 Local authority Cumbria Inspection number 989983

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Type of provision

Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 17 Total number of places 38 Number of children on roll 56 Name of provider Charlotte Wood and Margaret Wood Partnership Date of previous inspection 11/07/2014 Telephone number 01946591119

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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

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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