Lexden Lodge Kindergarten

Lexden Lodge Kindergarten 26 Lexden Road, Colchester, Essex, CO3 3QD

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Inspection date

Previous inspection date 25 August 2017 16 September 2014

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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

 Children's progress is excellent. Staff take a great deal of care to provide children with experiences that help to inspire them and encourage their curiosity and interest.  Staff have excellent relationships with children. They know children's needs instinctively and react quickly. For example, staff know when children are becoming tired and gently soothe them to sleep. Children have very high levels of emotional well-being.  The management team and staff have exceptional relationships with parents and other professionals, such as health visitors. They share a very wide range of information with parents regarding all aspects of children's care and achievements. Health visitors meet with parents at the nursery to discuss aspects of children's learning which require additional support.  There are extraordinary opportunities for children to learn about the differences between themselves and others. For example, staff take them on regular visits to a

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This provision is outstanding

local residential care home where children enjoy taking part in painting and drawing activities with the ladies and gentlemen who live there.  Children's behaviour is exceptional. They have excellent social skills and manners which they freely use whenever they interact with other children and staff. Children patiently take turns, share resources and negotiate roles in their imaginative play.  The management team makes excellent use of ongoing self-evaluation. They gather information from children, parents and staff, helping to prioritise areas to develop.

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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

 build even further on opportunities to encourage and ignite children's creative skills, particularly during planned activities.

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Inspection activities

 The inspector observed children and staff in their rooms and outside in the garden areas.  The inspector spoke to parents, children, staff and the management team.  The inspector held a meeting with the management team and checked evidence of staff's qualifications and their suitability to work with children.  The inspector completed a joint observation with the manager and held discussions with her regarding children's learning and progress.  The inspector sampled risk assessments and looked at children's learning records.

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Effectiveness of the leadership and management is outstanding

The management team works extremely closely together and have very high expectations of staff. They observe staff and hold regular meetings with them individually to check on their progress. The management team quickly arranges any training to supports staff's skills and knowledge even further. It accurately monitors children's progress to help identify areas where they need extra support. Staff plan all activities extremely well, although, very occasionally, they miss opportunities to add a wider range of resources to enhance children's creative skills even further. Staff have strong links with staff at other settings that children attend and school teachers. These help to support excellent communication and continuity in children's care and learning. Safeguarding is effective. The management team ensures all staff know what to do in the event of any concerns about children's safety or welfare.

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Quality of teaching, learning and assessment is outstanding

The quality of teaching is exceptionally high. Staff are extremely responsive to children's interests and go to great lengths to capitalise on the learning opportunities. For example, children learn about health and safety and vocabulary associated with building in the construction area. Staff encourage children to ensure they have their hard hats and high visibility jackets on. They ask them to think why it is important to wear safety clothes. Children mix sand and water together to make pretend cement and use this to sandwich lines of plastic bricks together. Staff spontaneously interact with children. For example, when a glitter jar becomes empty, staff pretend they are pirates and the plastic jar is their telescope, repeating well-known pirate phrases.

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Personal development, behaviour and welfare are outstanding

Staff make learning extremely enjoyable and make the most of opportunities to help children learn about the world around them and to care for other living creatures. For example, when children found an unusual green spider, staff made effective use of online resources to help them find out what type of spider it was. Overnight, the spider built an intricate web and laid eggs in her new jar home. Staff built on this fascination further and took the children on a hunt in the garden to find possible sources of food for the spider. Children vividly recall how they let the spider and her babies go in the garden.

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Outcomes for children are outstanding

Children are very independent and consistently take control of their own learning. They freely combine resources to extend their play. For example, they found a toy telephone to call the doctor for their 'injured' friend on the construction site. Older children have extremely well developed listening and concentration skills. For example, at circle time, they sit very still and follow staff's lead to sing complex action songs. Children quickly learn the words and even keep the song going when staff stop to hear their voices. Younger children settle in very quickly and soon became intently engrossed in exploring plastic dinosaurs in jelly.

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Setting details

Unique reference number EY307729 Local authority Essex Inspection number 1104357 Type of provision Full-time provision Day care type Childcare - Non-Domestic Registers Early Years Register, Compulsory Childcare Register, Voluntary Childcare Register Age range of children 0 - 8 Total number of places 125 Number of children on roll 186 Name of registered person Samco Enterprises Ltd

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reference number

Date of previous inspection 16 September 2014 Telephone number 01206 574005

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reference number

Lexden Lodge Kindergarten registered in 2005. The Kindergarten employs 30 members of staff. Of these, 24 hold appropriate early years qualifications at level 3 and above. This includes one member of staff who has early years practitioner status and one who has a degree. The kindergarten opens Monday to Friday, all year round. Sessions are from 7.30am to 6pm. The kindergarten provides funded early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children.

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reference number

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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reference number

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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reference number

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reference number

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our website for news, information and updates at www.ofsted.gov.uk/user.

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reference number

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

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