Little Meadow GroupOfsted inspection, 5 Nov 2015

Little Meadow Group Little Meadows, Elmore Lane East, Quedgeley, Gloucester, GL2 4LX

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 5 November 2015 16 May 2011

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This inspection: Outstanding 1

Effectiveness of the leadership and management Outstanding 1

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This inspection: Outstanding 1

Quality of teaching, learning and assessment Outstanding 1

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This inspection: Outstanding 1

Personal development, behaviour and welfare Outstanding 1

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This provision is outstanding

 The dedicated manager and committed staff team use highly effective monitoring processes to ensure that children make the best progress possible. Highly effective and inspirational self-evaluation and extreme accuracy in developing and implementing action plans, help management maintain consistently high standards in teaching, care and practice.  Parents are extremely happy with the service provided, particularly the strong, emotional attachments their children develop with their key person. Parents feel included in their child's learning and extremely well informed about their progress.  Children thrive in a very well organised and exceptionally well-resourced learning environment.  Management and staff demonstrate an outstanding commitment to developing partnerships with other professionals and settings. They use excellent arrangements for sharing information to ensure they are extremely knowledgeable about children's

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This provision is outstanding

individual needs. This helps them to maintain a consistent and continuous approach to meeting the children's needs.  The quality of teaching and care is outstanding. Staff have an excellent knowledge and understanding of childcare and development. They use their expertise to provide an extensive variety of activities and play experiences that challenge, motivate and interest children. Children flourish in all aspects of their learning, preparing them extremely well for the move to school.

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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

 strengthen children's awareness of healthy lifestyles even further.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed children playing, inside and outside.  The inspector spoke with staff, committee members, parents and children at convenient times during the inspection.  The inspector completed a joint observation with the manager.  The inspector sampled documentation, including learning records, self-evaluation and staff records.

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Effectiveness of the leadership and management is outstanding

Safeguarding is effective. Management and staff have an excellent knowledge of their child protection responsibilities and meet all the requirements. They use rigorous systems to ensure that staff are suitable to work with children. Staff have a comprehensive induction and highly effective support and training to maintain their consistently high standard of practice. Since the last inspection, management has developed the outdoors even further with more resources and a covered area so children have even more opportunities to extend their learning.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding

Teaching is highly effective throughout the pre-school. Children are eager to investigate the many high-quality experiences provided, indoors and outdoors. For example, children talked about patterns and shapes, measured, used a range of tools and developed their language skills as they redecorated the large playhouse with staff. Teaching is inspirational. The highly motivated staff promote children's all-round development. Children form excellent relationships with each other and their behaviour is exemplary. Caring and positive relationships with staff help children to feel safe and secure. Children thoroughly enjoy activities, either individually with staff or as part of a group. For example, children became very excited about making a pretend sparkler using a bread stick, icing and coloured sugar. Staff used children's interest extremely well to teach children about being safe on firework night and holding sparklers safely.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare are outstanding

Staff are meticulous at meeting children's needs. They take time to get to know children, and work exceedingly well with parents. Staff support children's emotional well-being very successfully when children first start. For instance, they adapt routines so that younger children have opportunities to gain confidence and get to know one another. As children gain confidence, they demonstrate increasing independence, for example, as they choose when and what they would like to eat for snack. Overall, staff promote healthy lifestyles well through a variety of activities. For example, children develop their physical skills as they use a range of equipment, spend time outside in the fresh air and learn about healthy eating. In addition, children grow and harvest some vegetables, such as potatoes, and learn how to cook them. Staff identified that children did not know where a range of different foods come from and recognised this as an area to develop further.

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Outcomes for children are outstanding

Children make excellent progress from their starting points in all areas of learning. Staff plan excellent activities to promote children's individual development to ensure they gain the skills they need for their ongoing learning and readiness for school.

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Setting details

Unique reference number 511757 Local authority Gloucestershire Inspection number 826267 Type of provision Sessional provision Day care type Childcare - Non-Domestic Age range of children 1 - 4 Total number of places 80 Number of children on roll 58 Name of provider Little Meadow Group Committee Date of previous inspection 16 May 2011 Telephone number 01452 725834

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Setting details

Little Meadow Group registered in November 2004. It operates on the site of Meadowside Primary School in Quedgeley, Gloucestershire. It opens each weekday during term time from 9am to 12 noon, and Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for the younger children from 12.45pm to 3pm. There are seven members of staff; of these, one holds Early Years Professional Status, one holds Qualified Teacher Status, one holds a qualification at level 6 and four hold 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

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Setting details

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