Woodland Nursery School

Woodland Nursery School St Martin's Hall, Dene Lane, Lower Bourne, Farnham, Surrey, GU10 3PN

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 11/12/2014 15/12/2011

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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

 The nursery is extremely welcoming, and inclusive. Staff are very approachable and friendly. As a result, children have warm relationships with them.  Staff have a very good understanding about children's backgrounds and interests on entry to the nursery. This is due to the extensive information recorded following discussions with parents. They key-person system is securely embedded and parents are very involved in their children's learning.  Staff provide children with rich and varied activities. As a result, the children are highly engaged in their play and are extremely willing and eager to join in.  Staff make accurate and consistent observations on the children, which means that they are making very good progress, and excellent progress in their social skills and language acquisition.  Staff are extremely supportive in helping children to form secure emotional attachments and offer them a strong base to develop their independence and awareness of safety,

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This provision is outstanding

health and self-care.  Children's safety is of the utmost importance to the nursery staff. The environment offers the security for children to explore in and outdoors.  Leadership and management of the nursery is inspirational. The manager has extremely high standards of her staff in ensuring children's individual needs are met. There are excellent systems for recruitment, vetting, training and supervision of staff.

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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 children in their play and in their interactions with the staff who care for them.  The inspector spoke with children, staff and parents.  The inspector conducted a joint observation with the manager.  The inspector read and took into account the nursery's self-evaluation form.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector sampled the nursery's documentation and children's development records.

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Information about the setting

Woodland Nursery School re-registered in 2011 under new ownership. It is one of four privately owned settings. The nursery operates from St. Martin's Hall in Lower Bourne, on the outskirts of Farnham in Surrey. Children's play takes place in one large room and they have access to a garden for outside play. The nursery is registered on the Early Years Register and the compulsory and voluntary parts of the Childcare Register. Children may attend from two years of age. The nursery is in receipt of funding for the provision of free early education to children aged two, three and four. It welcomes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children who are learning English as an additional language. There are currently 46 children on roll. The nursery opens weekdays, during term-time only. It offers a variety of sessions, including all day, mornings or afternoons. Core sessions for children under three years of age are Monday to Friday

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Information about the setting

9.10am to 12.10pm, and for children over three years of age sessions are held from 9.10am to 1.10pm, Monday to Friday. Additionally, these children can attend a session from 12.10pm to 3.15pm. The nursery employs nine members of staff, including the manager. Of these, one is a qualified teacher and all but two staff hold appropriate early years qualifications. The two unqualified staff are completing a training certificate.

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

 extend the use of everyday technology resources to further support how children are more curious to explore and investigate how things work.

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who attend

The nursery staff provide an outstanding environment for children to learn. Staff have an excellent knowledge of the learning and development requirements and teaching practice is consistently of a very high quality. Staff confidently interact with children, who are fully engaged in what they do. Planning is centred on the needs of the individual child with staff using their accurate assessments of children's achievements to extend and broaden the rich and challenging experiences for children. Consequently, overall all children are making very good progress in relation to their abilities on entry to the nursery. This is particularly evident in the extremely high levels of attainment in relation to children's social and emotional development, and in their language and communication.

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who attend

Staff skilfully adapt everyday activities extremely well. For example, they encourage the children to explore with 'Christmas spiced' play dough. They invite the children to smell the dough and provide festive cutters to mould with. Children roll their dough out confidently and talk to staff about what they are making, or the smells they recognise. Staff are proactive in offering instructions in order to help children and provide dialogue for children to follow. For example, staff help children to hold a knife correctly when cutting the dough, and use terms such as 'flat' and 'cut it in half'. This enables children to put these phrases in to context and helps children to be confident and aware of their own abilities.

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who attend

Staff actively promote children's awareness of sounds and letters. They provide children with clues to spell out their names as the children use magnetic boards with letters. Other children help staff to empty the nursery's post box. Inventive staff encourage the children to sort the post with them. Children confidently recognised the first letters of names, and work out who the card belongs to. Staff provide excellent opportunities to build children's interest in books. Some excellent discussions took place as staff read the story of 'Sleeping Beauty' for example. Children were extremely inquisitive about what would happen next, who the characters were, and how long 100 years ago might be. As a result of these highly effective interactions, children are inquisitive and listen intensely. This means that children are confident to offer their views and suggestions and think actively.

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who attend

Staff are highly proactive in promoting children self-esteem and language. They encourage the children to practise for the Christmas concert. Children were extremely enthusiastic in singing songs they have clearly learned very well. Staff provide very warm reassurance as some children sing solo performances or as a duo. Staff are enthusiastic about the adult- led activities they offer to children. As a result, children are extremely eager to join in. Staff encourage children to join a gardening activity. Children chose their gloves and kneeling pads as staff explained the importance of preparing the soil, so that the plants will grow during the winter. Children talked to one another about the 'wiggly worms' and helped each other to pick up the fallen leaves. The children carefully dug over the soil ready to plant the flowers, using small trowels. Cooperatively the children took turns to make a hole and plant their Pansy. Staff take exceptional advantage of the use of

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who attend

language, by explaining that the children need to 'tease out the roots' prior to putting the plant into the hole. Children watched and listened with pride, and using small hand trowels set their plants into the soil. The children were keen to explain that the plants will need water to grow.

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

The key-person system is fully embedded into practice at the nursery. Children demonstrate a very warm and close relationship with their main carer, who is responsible for all key aspects of their day, and who exchanges a highly effective two-way communication with parents on a daily basis. Children show that they have secure emotional attachments and are clearly settled and content at nursery. They demonstrate exceptional behaviour throughout the inspection. Children play alongside one another and are extremely thoughtful. For example during gardening club, children pass each other gloves and a kneeling pad and are content to wait their turn and watch their friends planting flowers. This shows that children have an excellent awareness of helping others in social situations. The nursery is extremely well resourced. Overall, staff have an excellent understanding of how to set out the learning environment so that children benefit from an outstanding

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

range of learning experiences. Children can easily access their toys, resources and activities and can make additional choices from the self-selection cabinets. Children do this confidently both in and outdoors and therefore develop skills and interests in a vast range of experiences. Unfortunately, although there are resources in the role-play areas that promote everyday lifestyles, further resources to enhance children's curiosity and exploration through everyday technology, were not used as efficiently on the day of the inspection. Nevertheless, children are being introduced to information technology and an external provider is visiting the nursery each week, to promote how children extend their learning in this aspect.

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

Staff have an incredible knowledge of children's individual needs. They are highly supportive in helping children to manage their own self-care and to develop an awareness of hygiene and safety. For example, staff encourage children to adapt their play outdoors. The garden area is set over different levels, with various steps and slopes, and children are mindful about where to run and where to walk. Children are independent in putting on boots and coats and playing outside. They have an excellent understanding of safety as they play. For example they wait for staff to help them when they are 'dressing' the dolls' house with decorations, and understand that they must not use the chairs to stand on. They tell staff about how to use scissors during their art and craft activities. They understand that they must not run or walk about with these resources, and why it is important to sit when cutting with scissors. Prior to eating, children know the importance

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

of washing their hands for example. They do this, in line with their stage of development, with minimal coaxing or support.

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

Staff adhere to children's allergies and/or dietary needs. Although the nursery does not provide lunch, staff encourage children's parents to provide healthy and balanced meals. Children have been actively involved in their gardening club. This means that they have built an exceptional awareness of growing and harvesting produce. This provides them with purposeful opportunities to learn where food comes from and the benefits of eating healthily. Children explain that the plants need water to grow and can equate that to their own bodies. They thoroughly enjoyed a physical play session provided by an external company, and these sessions help children to understand the impact physical exercise has on their well-being. Staff provide excellent opportunities during snack time to prepare children for the next stage of their learning. Staff monitor that children have their snack and a drink, but encourage children's independence incredibly well. Children wash their

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

hands, select a plate and choose their snack, using tongs and not fingers, to put the fruits on their plate. They carefully pour their drinks before sitting down to eat with their friends.

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provision

The nursery practice is extremely welcoming and inclusive. The leadership and management of the nursery are highly effective. The manager has an exemplary and strong focus in ensuring high expectations of her staff to meet the needs of the children attending. Excellent practice in relation to the recruitment and retention of staff, induction, training and staff supervision means that staff working with children are, and continue to be, suitable to do so. Staff coaching and staff meetings focus on planning for children's learning, keeping children safe and reflecting on their practice. Staff are provided with excellent opportunities to enhance their professional development. As a result, staff are able to share very good practice that in turn enhances the outcomes for children. Evaluation of the nursery practice also takes into account the views of children and their parents. As a result, the management team are very confident in acknowledging their

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provision

strengths and prioritising their targets for the continued strong provision of care. Recent improvements have focused on the outdoor environment, which has been extremely beneficial to children's development and learning.

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provision

Staff have an excellent understanding of the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Children's safety takes the utmost importance of nursery life. There are well-embedded systems in relation to children's arrival and departure, any intimate care, risk assessments of the indoors and outdoors, and in supporting how children learn about their own health, safety and self-care. All staff have completed safeguarding children training. They demonstrate an excellent awareness of their responsibilities in relation to child protection and the procedures to take should they have a concern about a child in their care.

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provision

Staff adhere to the nursery's robust policies and procedures during their daily practice. Staff share these policies with parents so that they understand the procedures that support children's health and safety. The majority of staff hold a recognised paediatric first aid training certificate. Those whose certificates have just expired are about to update their training. Consequently, this means that staff are confident to deal with any minor accidents that may occur, and that there are always staff available with this knowledge and understanding in times of medical emergency. As a result of this good practice, the health, safety and well-being of children are very well promoted

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provision

Staff have extremely well-established partnerships with external professional agencies and the local authority. Through these partnerships staff have been able to make timely interventions when needed, to promote the outcomes of children's individual needs. Partnerships with local schools are established too, which means that staff are able to pass on vital information about children, prior to them moving on to school. The nursery staff are proactive and mindful of the importance of working with others who share the care of the children. In respect of those children who also attend another setting, information about children's progress and assessments of their learning are also shared, in agreement with parents.

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provision

Parents are highly valued. There are successful strategies to engage all parents. For example, staff gain extensive information from parents about their children prior to children starting at the nursery. This means that staff have a very good knowledge of children's backgrounds and interests, as well as a highly effective understanding of their development to date. This practice is extremely useful in supporting how staff plan initially for children and consequently it means children settle well. Parents are invited to volunteer days so that they can see how children learn through play. Staff offer guidance booklets to support strategies for learning at home from a range of issues ranging from toileting, to reading books or learning maths. Parents are given highly informative feedback at the end of the day, take home children's learning journals and contribute to these. Parents are eager to attend key-person meetings to be updated on their child's'

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provision

progress. Parents were very willing to share their views of the nursery and its staff. They stated that staff were 'fantastic' and provided 'excellent care' for their children. Parents added that children's journals are informative and give an accurate account of their child. Parents acknowledged that their children were very happy and settle very well. They stated that they could not recommend the nursery enough.

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provision

Staff have an extremely secure understanding of the learning and development requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. They demonstrate outstanding teaching and interaction skills with the children. The deployment of staff is extremely well managed. Not only does this mean that staff are every able to supervise children very well, in order to keep them safe, it also means that the staff can engage purposefully with the children in small groups, or individually as children play. Staff complete consistent and accurate observations and assessments on children. They use their knowledge of children's attainments to plan for children's individual next steps. As a result, all children are making extremely good progress in relation to their points on entry to nursery. They show exceptional readiness for their next stage of learning.

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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 EY429508 Local authority Surrey Inspection number 823519 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 2 - 8 Total number of places 30 Number of children on roll 46 Name of provider CS Nursery Schools Ltd Date of previous inspection 15/12/2011 Telephone number 01252 793863

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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

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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