Badgers Pre-School

Badgers Preschool c/o Holbrook Primary School, Wych Lane, Gosport, Hampshire, PO13 0JN

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 12/01/2015 30/03/2009

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early years provision

This inspection: 2 Previous inspection: 3 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 2

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This provision is good

 The highly stimulating and imaginative environment meets children's needs extremely well.  The key person system and staff interaction is exceptionally good with all children making very good attachments to support their emotional needs.  The partnerships with parents are strong with good communication and systems to engage parents in children's learning.  Staff are well trained and coached to understand their roles and responsibilities because of the manager's strong leadership skills.

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It is not yet outstanding because

 The teaching strategies to enable children who are not at the expected level of development are not always highly successful in ensuring that gaps in children's development close rapidly.

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Information about this inspection

Inspections of registered early years provision are:  scheduled at least once in every inspection cycle – the current cycle ends on 31 July

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Information about this inspection

 scheduled more frequently where Ofsted identifies a need to do so, for example where provision was previously judged inadequate  brought forward in the inspection cycle where Ofsted has received information that suggests the provision may not be meeting the legal requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage or where assessment of the provision identifies a need for early inspection  prioritised where we have received information that the provision is not meeting the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage and which suggests children may not be safe  scheduled at the completion of an investigation into failure to comply with the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed play and learning activities indoors and outdoors and tracked a sample of children.  The inspector undertook a joint observation with the manager.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector had discussions with the manager regarding leadership and management.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector looked at a sample of tracked children's progress records and planning, and had discussions with staff relating to safeguarding and welfare.  The inspector spoke to some parents to gain their views of the preschool.

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Information about the setting

Badgers Preschool is a committee run group, which opened in 1996. It is situated in Holbrook primary school, which is set in the established residential area of Bridgemary on the outskirts of Gosport. Accommodation includes two large classrooms connected with a sliding door, toilet facilities, welcome and reception area and an enclosed outside play area, which the children can access easily. The pre-school have use of the school hall and school playground on a regular basis.

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Information about the setting

The setting is registered on the Early Years Register. There are currently 37 children from two to five years on roll. The setting is in receipt of funding for early education. The setting supports children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The group offers sessions from 9am to 11.30am Monday to Friday, and 12.30pm to 3pm Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday during school term time. There is an additional lunch club from 11.30am until 12.30pm, to enable children to access either sessional care or longer care. Including the manager, the committee employs ten staff who work with the children. Of these, eight hold a childcare qualification at level 3, 4 or 5.

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

 strengthen the teaching strategies further to enable all children to make fast progress from their starting points, with any gaps closing rapidly.

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who attend

Children relish their time at pre-school and show they are very keen and motivated learners during their play. The staff support children's needs effectively by their constantly good engagement and interaction during the children's freely chosen play. All staff, including the unqualified staff, have a good understanding of the Early Years Foundation Stage, of how young children learn, and their different play preferences and styles of learning. Planning is very responsive to children's developmental needs and interests. It includes rich, very varied and imaginative experiences for children. This means all children make good developmental progress from their individual starting points. In addition, the staff provide an effective balance of adult-planned and child-initiated activities which cover all areas of learning. For example, the staff support children very well in the role play area, when they pretend to be doctors and nurses. For example, a member of staff

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who attend

involved herself in the children's play, being a patient with a bandaged arm. Her careful and her purposeful interactions offered good challenge and extended the learning for the group of children. She encouraged one child to have a long conversation on the phone to a different nurse. Asking open questions, she introduced new vocabulary such 'crutches' and 'pain relief'. She extended their understanding and knowledge well, for example, modelling and explaining different treatments by saying, 'This one, you have to suck it, it helps with breathing if you have asthma.' Children were highly engaged during this play and showed their very good knowledge. For example, a four-year-old told her confidently, 'You need an injection!, then got the syringe and administered her the pretend injection. The member of staff later read a book about hospitals and treatments to the small group of children, extending their knowledge very successfully.

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who attend

The staff ensure there is good focus on helping children to acquire communication and language skills. They effectively implement knowledge from training they have attended into their daily practice. The staff model language and provide a play narrative for the younger children with emerging speaking skills; with older children they use lots of varied questions and give them time to think and talk. The staff provide regular small group language games to build up the children's confidence and communication skills. For example, children bring in their 'chatterboxes' full of special items and photos from home, which staff encourage them to talk about. However, these groups are not consistently of very high quality because, on some occasions, staff do not fully promote the learning aims of listening and attention. This means that, while children who are below the expected level of development on entry to the pre-school make good progress, the gaps in

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who attend

children's communication skills are not always closing rapidly.

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who attend

Each key person plans for their individual children and implements it during the session to ensure they effectively build on children's skills, knowledge and interests. For example, they noted as a team, the boys' interest in superheroes and so brought this element into the mark making and tool areas, indoors and outdoors. There are very good opportunities for children to mark make standing up, on a wipe board or on the interactive wipe board. This ensures that boys as well as girls have good learning opportunities to practise their emergent writing skills. Staff complete accurate, written termly assessments of children's development, including the progress check for two-year-old children. This means that staff can identify children who need extra support and devise an individual education plan with structured teaching, which enables the children to make progress. Overall, all children are developing well in their skills that will help them in the future.

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

The pre-school is an exceedingly nurturing setting because of the strong skills of all key persons and the highly stimulating and imaginative environment indoors and out. There are plentiful play resources, with a high focus on children's independent learning and self- help skills; for example, child height sinks in the snack area. Outdoors, there are inspirational areas with recyclable materials as well as large blocks to encourage transporting, building and working together, a mud kitchen and challenging, dome climbing equipment. Children's artwork is displayed on the walls, which show their positive learning outcomes. This means that children and their families feel extremely welcomed, very settled and happy. Children cannot wait to go back to pre-school after the holidays. The excellent use of an effective key-person system means young children form strong bonds with the adults, who are very responsive to their needs. The key person and buddy

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

carry out a home visit prior to children starting at the pre-school to further enhance this. The nappy changing routine is undertaken by the key person to ensure children's care is fully tailored to their needs. The staff skilfully support children's move to school, through many visits and excellent liaison with teachers, to ensure confidence and strong sense of belonging. All children demonstrate they have built very good relationships with the adults and their friends. They often show high social competence for their age. For example, a child saw two staff talking on the sofa in the communication friendly play space and said to her friends, 'We won't go in there, they are talking.', then found a different space to play together. Staff offer children a lot of praise and encouragement, and all children show they feel safe and secure through the vigilant attention they receive from the staff. All children behave well because staff are very strong role models. Staff use very good

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

teaching strategies to encourage positive behaviour, such as the use of the smiley and sad faces and 'star achiever' board, which is used for children and staff. This helps promote strong performance and learning outcomes for everyone.

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

The staff pay excellent attention to children's safety and safeguarding because it is central to what they do. They effectively support children's growing understanding of how to keep themselves safe. They encourage them to risk assess for themselves in managed situations, for example, when climbing trees outside the school campus. They use hazard signs to help children recognise and avoid dangerous places or equipment. Children learn about growing food in their mini-allotment area. They fully understand about how to keep healthy, and eat and sell their produce. The children use the toilet independently and wash their hands unprompted because they are well aware of the routines to keep healthy. Children enjoy nutritious snacks of various fruits and drinks mid-morning, which helps them to learn to make healthy choices. Free-flow indoor and outdoor play means that children can have plenty of physical exercise and fresh air and decide when to do so.

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

Children enjoy developing their movement skills as they step and balance on stepping logs and climb on the challenging equipment. Others build and play imaginatively with their friends in the well-resourced large construction area.

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provision

The cohesive staff team works exceptionally well together to implement successfully robust policies and procedures. This means that requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage are consistently implemented at the pre-school and children are extremely well cared for. The preschool give high priority to safeguarding children, with staff well trained on child protection issues, including whistle blowing and e-safety. Safeguarding documentation is up to date and organised well by the competent manager and staff. Rigorous procedures are in place for the recruitment, supervision and appraisal of staff, which include the close monitoring of staff skills and extensive regular training to increase their knowledge. In addition to this, the manager keeps a close eye on ensuring staff's continued suitability to their role and responsibilities. The induction of new staff is thorough. The excellent attention to safety and safeguarding means that risk assessments

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provision

are regularly carried out, with attention to detail. For example, a photo of unsafe hinges on furniture was printed so the staff could check the safety of their children's storage units.

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provision

The pre-school has an extremely clear vision to continually evaluate and improve their practice. The manager and staff show a united approach and a high drive and enthusiasm for their roles; they consistently access training to implement high quality practice. For example, they have used the knowledge from an outdoor learning course to enhance the preschool. After doing a preschool audit, they gained funds to improve the toilet facilities to promote children's personal independence. The accurate benchmarking of their practice through the Ofsted self-evaluation form gives a comprehensive picture of the strengths of the preschool and further areas for improvement.

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provision

There is a very strong focus on partnerships with parents; key staff are very welcoming and friendly when parents arrive with their children. The preschool implements successful training initiatives for parents to give focused support on how to help child's learning at home. The preschool have a very good system to exchange information about the preschool with new parents during flexible settling in visits and through their documentation. Parents speak knowingly and glowingly of the preschool and staff and of the good information sharing on matters relating to children's care and learning. For example, they say, 'The communication here is just fantastic.' The preschool's good attention to involving and engaging parents in children's learning at home has a positive influence on children's development. For example, they have a 'proud cloud' board where parents are encouraged to write down that their child has done to be proud of at home.

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provision

Partnerships with external agencies and other providers are well established, which means there is a focused and shared approach to children's learning. For example, there are good links with the school, the children's centre, where they do regular training, and other childcare professionals to support children with special educational needs and children who have English as an additional language.

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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 507949 Local authority Hampshire Inspection number 843307 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 2 - 4 Total number of places 32 Number of children on roll 37 Name of provider Badgers Preschool Committee Date of previous inspection 30/03/2009 Telephone number 01329 286011 07866313655

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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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