Chislet & District Playgroup

Chislet And District Playgroup Village Hall, Hoath, Canterbury, Kent, CT3 4LA

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 17/12/2014 08/10/2009

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early years provision

This inspection: 2 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 2 The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision 2

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This provision is good

 Children play in a stimulating, welcoming environment, with easy access to a good variety of resources, both indoor and outdoor, to support their learning and development.  Staff promote effective partnerships with parents and external agencies enabling them to identify and meet children's individual needs well.  Children make good progress in their learning and development because staff provide many opportunities for child-initiated learning and support them to repeat and consolidate their skills.  The commitment by staff to share regular information with parents, both verbally and in writing, keeps parents well informed about their children's progress.

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It is not yet outstanding because

 Staff do not maximise the use of visual timetables and picture cards within the playgroup to support fully children who are new, younger, less confident or find it difficult to communicate.

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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's play and staff interactions with the children throughout the playgroup.  The inspector took account of the views of parents through short discussions.  The inspector held a meeting with the manager and undertook a joint observation.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector examined documentation, including a representative sample of children's records, accident records and policies.

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Information about the setting

Chislet and District Playgroup registered in 1975. It is managed by a voluntary committee and operates from Hoath Village Hall, near Canterbury, Kent. The playgroup has access to a main hall, kitchen and toilets. All children share access to an enclosed outdoor play area. The playgroup is open each weekday from 9am to 12.45pm, term time only. Friday sessions are dedicated to the rising-school entrants. There are currently 20 children aged from two to under-five years on roll. The playgroup supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The playgroup employs five members of staff, of whom four hold relevant early years qualifications at level 3. The playgroup is in receipt of funding for the provision of free early education for two-, three-, and four-year-old children.

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

 promote further children's communication skills and understanding of the daily routines, for example, by promoting consistently visual timetables and picture cards.

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who attend

Children are happy, motivated learners because the staff have a good understanding of how to meet children's learning and development needs. They ensure children experience a stimulating, wide range of activities both indoors and outside to cover all areas of learning. This allows the children opportunities to enjoy and explore the challenging experiences and activities on offer and became active learners. Staff are skilled and dedicated ensuring that children make progress through targeted planning to meet the children's individual interests and needs. As a result, children make good progress from their starting points.

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who attend

The environment is colourful, welcoming and provides good quality age-appropriate resources for all the ages of children who attend. Staff give daily thought to the layout of the resources to encourage the children to independently access toys and activities from low-level shelving and drawers. As a result, children can self-select their own toys and play. For example, children selected the magnifying glasses and became engrossed looking at different objects and people around the playgroup. Staff label the wide selection of different resources and toys, and photographs and displays throughout the playgroup provide rich opportunities for children to learn to recognise words. Children are encouraged to continue to recognise words when they self-register at snack time. Consequently, children not only recognise their own names but also help other children to remove correctly their names from the list. However, staff do not maximise the use of

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who attend

picture cards for those children who do not yet talk to promote their communication. Various different types of small-world equipment give children the opportunities to play imaginary games as they park vehicles in the garage or become animals on the farm.

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who attend

The staff support the children to make full use of the well-resourced outdoor play area, promoting their large muscle physical development well. They use the trampoline, swing backwards and forwards on the seesaw, climb up steps, and use sit-and-ride toys to develop their spatial awareness. Children have good opportunities to explore using natural resources, such as sand, water and sawdust. Staff support children to develop an understanding of the natural world by encouraging them to use their senses to explore. For example, children investigate the differences between insects in the sawdust, and the different vegetables and fruit the children grow. As a result, the children are interested and eager to learn and make good progress in understanding the world.

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who attend

The staff use a system of observations, planning and assessment to plan for and show children's progress. Therefore, individual children are able to make good progress in their learning and development. The key person gathers information about the children's starting points by using a wide range of information from parents, observations and photographs. They use the Early Years Foundation Stage guidance to assess the observations and plan for the children's future activities to extend and consolidate their learning. Staff know the children very well and the key person can talk in detail about the children's individual strengths and their next steps in learning. Therefore, staff support children to reach their full potential.

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

The staff implement the key-person system effectively and consequently, children are generally well settled. Young children build good relationships with their key person and show their attachment, such as when they cuddle up to them as they share a book and the older children choose to sit and involve them in their play. Staff know their key children well enabling them to support their care, learning and development and individual needs. However, although there are visual prompts to show the changes in routine staff do not consistently use these to prepare less confident or new children for these changes. The manager and key person build a good relationship with parents. This enables them to support individual children's needs, such as through care plans for additional educational needs or following parents' cultural or religious requests.

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

Staff encourage children to be independent, such as pouring their own drinks at snack time. Staff teach the children to follow good hygiene procedures and wash their hands independently after toileting or using the paint. Staff reinforce this through songs sung at registration. Consequently, the majority of children are competent in self-care skills. Children benefit from a wide range of experiences that helps them to learn about a healthy lifestyle. They eat freshly prepared snacks that are nutritionally well balanced. These include fruit and vegetables grown in the garden. The children are involved with the growing process from the very start constructing a greenhouse made of bubble wrap and plastic bottles. They have picked strawberries for their snack. They have recently made pumpkin soup from pumpkins grown in the garden. This generated a great deal of conversation about size and weight as well as the opportunities to explore the texture and

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

taste of pumpkins. As a result, children are developing an understanding of healthy foods and of how they are grown.

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

Children have daily access to the outdoor area and staff develop the children's physical development very well. Children negotiate a range of physical play equipment and develop their large muscles by riding bikes, running and playing ball games. In addition, children are learning skills that will benefit them in other areas of learning, for example, managing risks when negotiating the bikes or running around.

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

Staff are supported by a special educational needs system. This helps to identify and offer early support to children, and, when necessary, engage other professionals, such as speech and language therapists. Consequently, staff support children with additional learning needs appropriately to make progress from their starting points. Staff are good role models and encourage respect and acceptable behaviour from children. They all use consistent behaviour management strategies to ensure continuity for children. For example, staff use distraction techniques to encourage children to take turns. As a result, the children behave well, understanding the boundaries and need very little support to share and take turns.

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provision

The manager and staff have a good understanding of the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. Safeguarding procedures are secure, with all practitioners receiving training on a regular basis. The staff display an extremely knowledgeable and clear understanding of the safeguarding procedure. They know, and can discuss, the procedures in place should they have concerns about a child in their care or a worry about a member of staff. The playgroup staff maintain the security of the premises and supervise the children well to keep them safe. They have updated their risk assessments following the previous inspection. Staff practise regular fire drills with the children and a keep a careful record to ensure all children are included in the process. Documentation is in place to record any incidents or accidents and staff review these regularly. As a result, staff deal quickly with any recurring incidents that may cause

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provision

concern. This helps to protect children's welfare.

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provision

The manager has a good understanding of her responsibilities in meeting the learning and development requirements. Well-developed monitoring systems are in place for both individual and groups of children. This identifies achievement gaps and ensures planning is put in place to address them. As a result, children make good progress toward their early learning goals. The manager uses a data programme to analyse the children's development and identify areas for improvement. For example, she identified mathematics was one of the weaker areas. As a result, the manager and staff have put in place plans to rectify this by strengthening planning for mathematical activities, and reviewing and buying new resources. This means that the staff are responsive and act to improve any weaknesses.

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provision

The playgroup staff have very good partnerships with parents, seeing families returning with their siblings. The staff have fully embedded systems to seek the views of parents through daily discussion, newsletters and parent questionnaires. In addition, informal meetings take place between staff and parents to discuss their child's progress, and written assessment and learning journeys are sent home for the parents to review. As a result, of the two-way flow of information parents' views and opinions are included in the self-evaluation process and contribute to meeting the children's needs. Parents speak eagerly and very highly of the playgroup. They like the personalised learning, the good ratios of adult to children. They appreciate that parents are able to become involved through the committee. Parents feel their children make good progress and enjoy looking at their child's learning journey at home, and sharing it with family. Consequently, this

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provision

promotes continuity in children's learning between home and the playgroup.

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provision

Staff have a well-established partnership with the management committee, other professionals and agencies, such as speech and language therapists andspecial educational needs coordinators. Staff use these partnerships to benefit and support children with additional needs. The playgroup staff have strong links with the local community and schools, which allows discussion about the children going to school to help smooth children's move to school.

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provision

Good leadership has allowed the manager to motivate, support and involve all the staff in improving all aspects of the provision creating a strong working team. The self-evaluation system is on going, open, includes staff and through questionnaires includes parents. As a result, there is a total drive to improve outcomes for the children.

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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 127103 Local authority Kent Inspection number 846295 Type of provision Sessional provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 2 - 5 Total number of places 20 Number of children on roll 20 Name of provider Chislet & District Pre-School Playgroup Committee Date of previous inspection 08/10/2009 Telephone number 01227 710607

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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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