Ottertots Day Care Nursery

Ottertots Day Care Nursery East Hill, Ottery St. Mary, Devon, EX11 1QH

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 19 August 2015 18 August 2011

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This inspection: Outstanding 1

Previous inspection: Outstanding 1 How well the early years provision meets the needs of the range of children who attend Outstanding 1

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This inspection: Outstanding 1

The contribution of the early years provision to the well-being of children Outstanding 1

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This inspection: Outstanding 1

The effectiveness of the leadership and management of the early years provision Outstanding 1

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This inspection: Outstanding 1

The setting meets legal requirements for early years settings

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This provision is outstanding

 Staff plan an extensive variety of play experiences that challenge, inspire and capture children's interests. As a result, all children make rapid progress and staff ensure they are fully prepared for the next stage in their education.  The key-person system is exceptional. Children develop close, trusting attachments to their key person through the highly effective settling-in procedures. This helps them to form positive relationships and gain confidence and self-esteem.  Staff demonstrate an excellent understanding of how to protect and safeguard children. They actively promote children's safety and welfare through the rigorous implementation of meticulous policies and procedures.  Partnerships with parents are excellent. Staff speak with parents on a regular basis about the progress that their children are making. Staff provide parents with ideas of how to support their children's learning at home. This contributes positively to the two-

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This provision is outstanding

way exchange of information and means that children benefit from consistent support in their learning.  An extremely effective programme of professional development always focuses on raising the quality of teaching for the children. This means that teaching is continually improving to ensure all children's experiences are of the highest quality.  The highly-qualified and experienced staff work well together, which means the organisation of the nursery, is excellent. Staff provide a relaxed, fun and homely environment where each child is respected and valued.  There is a strong ethos of continuous improvement across the setting involving children, staff and parents.

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What the setting needs to do to improve further

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

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What the setting needs to do to improve further

 extend opportunities for children to learn about the weather.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed teaching and interactions between the staff and children.  The inspector spoke with staff and the owners.  The inspector sampled documentation including staff suitability checks, policies and procedures and children's learning records.  The inspector carried out a joint observation with one of the owners.  The inspector spoke with some parents to gain their views on the day of the inspection.

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who attend. This is outstanding

Children make outstanding progress because teaching is consistently of a very high standard. Staff use accurate assessments taken from detailed observations to plan precisely for children's next steps in learning. Staff are highly skilled in providing a superb balance of adult-led and activities children choose themselves. Staff engage and enthuse children in their play and learning. However, occasionally staff miss opportunities to extend children's understanding of the weather. Staff actively follow children's interests. They provide children with highly stimulating and creative activities that promote their mathematical and language development, and imaginative skills. For example, using the children's interest in volcanoes, staff encourage them to draw and discuss the shape of volcanoes. Staff skilfully ask purposeful questions and challenge children's thinking as they extend their language using rhyming words and bring learning to life using puppets.

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outstanding

Staff are exceptionally caring and provide a warm, welcoming environment that supports children's emotional well-being. Children are extremely happy, confident and self-assured learners. They are cooperative, helpful and their behaviour is very good. Staff are highly skilled in keeping all children focused on activities. They use daily routines very well to consolidate and extend children's learning and to promote their independence. Babies persevere with learning to work out how things work, such as pop-up toys. The vibrant, stimulating, challenging soft play area supports children's physical development extremely well. This also helps children learn how to assess risk and keep themselves safe as they look for dangers as they climb up the equipment and use the slides.

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provision is outstanding

The owners and all staff have a thorough understanding of their roles and responsibilities to meet the requirements of the Early Years Foundation Stage. The owners hold regular staff meetings and appraisals to help to identify areas for professional development. In addition, they observe the quality of staff teaching skills in a variety of ways and gives constructive feedback for improvement. The owners work with staff to swiftly identify any gaps in areas of learning and actively take steps to close them quickly. The owners are constantly reviewing ways to ensure that exceptional practice is consistent throughout the nursery. For example, they identified that staff training in forest school activities would enhance children's all round development. Staff have attended training and there are now plans to embed this in practice. Parents speak very highly of their children's care and learning. They value the daily contact they have with staff and parents' evenings where

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provision is outstanding

they have opportunities to discuss their children's progress.

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Setting details

Unique reference number EY358746 Local authority Devon Inspection number 827713 Type of provision Full-time provision Registration category Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 0 - 8 Total number of places 50 Number of children on roll 149 Name of provider Ottertots Limited Date of previous inspection 18 August 2011 Telephone number 01404 815854

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Setting details

Ottertots Day Care Nursery registered in 2007. The nursery is on the outskirts of Ottery St. Mary, Devon. The nursery is open Monday to Friday, from 8am to 6pm all year round, excluding bank holidays. The nursery is in receipt of free early education for children aged two, three and four years. There are 24 staff; of these, two staff hold Qualified Teacher Status and 17 staff hold early years qualifications at level 3.

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Setting details

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

procedures set out in the guidance ‘Complaints procedure: raising concerns and making complaints about Ofsted’, which is available from Ofsted’s website: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted. If you would like Ofsted to send you a copy of the guidance, please telephone 0300 123 4234, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk. 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, safeguarding and child protection.

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Setting details

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Setting details

T: 0300 123 4234 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted

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