Choochoos Day Nursery Canterbury

Inspection of Choochoos Day Nursery Canterbury 50 Mill Lane, Harbledown, Canterbury, Kent CT2 8NE

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Overall effectiveness Outstanding

The quality of education Outstanding Behaviour and attitudes Outstanding Personal development Outstanding Leadership and management Outstanding Overall effectiveness at previous inspection Outstanding

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The provision is outstanding

Children are extremely happy, anticipating the day ahead with great enthusiasm as they arrive at nursery. They know daily routines well and settle to play with their friends with great confidence. Children excitedly explore resources, participate in planned activities and play independently. They are extremely keen to enjoy the outdoor environment, where they engage in pretend play, such as in the very well- resourced mud kitchen.

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The provision is outstanding

Children receive excellent support from the attentive staff team. Staff support and extend children's individual interests and development exceptionally well. For example, when children discovered dinosaurs hidden in sand, staff challenged them in naming the range of dinosaurs found and researching their eating habits. This supports children's pronunciation and vocabulary to extremely high levels.

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The provision is outstanding

Children consistently display excellent behaviour due to well-established boundaries and daily structured routines. For example, older children know how to feed and care for guinea pigs, following safety and hygiene guidelines that have been established together and displayed. Young children demonstrate they feel extremely safe and seek out staff for comfort and support.

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The provision is outstanding

Staff focus strongly on building excellent relationships with children and each member of their family. This results in intense enthusiasm throughout the nursery, enabling children to flourish and thrive.

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The provision is outstanding

Children develop an excellent awareness of their immediate community. For example, they sponsor a guide dog called Monty and a local football team. They visit an elderly people's care home and sing songs with residents.

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need to do better?

n The provider uses robust recruitment procedures to ensure the high calibre and suitability of staff. She invests in developing their already excellent teaching skills, such as by providing a programme of training courses. Staff have focused strongly on developing their knowledge and skills ready for changes in early years practice. Training on makaton has further increased staff's ability to enable children to communicate their thoughts and ideas extremely effectively. n The manager has successfully embedded a reflective culture. This motivates and empowers all staff to continuously look for ways to improve the experiences they give children. Staff make regular and reflective observations and assessments of children's learning and development. They use these to fully understand the uniqueness of each child to ensure children make excellent progress given their staring points.

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need to do better?

5 September 2019 n Babies show extremely high levels of curiosity and perseverance, such as when they discover what shapes they can fit into shape sorters. This helps them to begin to understand size and shapes. n Staff support children's independence extremely well. For example, children spread butter on crackers and work out together to use the smooth side of their knife to stop their crackers from breaking. Children contribute their ideas such as by using snackboard picture labels to make choices in what they would like for snacks each week. n Staff keep parents very well informed of their children's experiences and learning. Regular newsletters let parents know which activities and events have been planned for the coming weeks. Assessments of children's progress are shared in individual meetings. These include activity ideas and a contact book service parents can use to support their children's learning at home.

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need to do better?

n All children's needs are exceedingly well met because staff have highly effective partnerships with external agencies and other provisions. This includes those children that receive additional funding. n Staff are very knowledgeable about how to identify and support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They work closely with parents and other professionals to help ensure that children's individual needs are met. n The provider and her staff team are passionate about improving the service they provide. They have successfully refurbished the outdoor environment to increase learning opportunities for all children. The provider involves staff, parents and children in evaluating the impact of improvements to make sure they result in enhanced experiences for all children.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

Staff have an exceptional knowledge and understanding of child protection, including the wider aspects of safeguarding. Managers ensure staff undertake regular training, so their knowledge remains current. Other agencies have highly praised the management team for their thoroughly robust investigation into safeguarding children.

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Setting details

Unique reference number EY414930 Local authority Kent Inspection number 10121003 Type of provision Childcare on non-domestic premises Registers Early Years Register Day care type Full day care Age range of children 0 to 4 Total number of places 85 Number of children on roll 115 Name of registered person Tabony, Karla Margharita

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reference number

Telephone number 01227 464 230 Date of previous inspection 28 July 2016

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Information about this early years setting

Choochoos Day Nursery Canterbury registered in 2010. It is one of three nurseries owned by the same provider and operates from a building in Harbledown, near Canterbury, Kent. The nursery is open Monday to Friday, from 8am to 6pm, all year round. The provider receives funding to provide free early education for children aged two, three and four years. There are 22 staff, all of whom hold appropriate early years qualifications. 2 members of staff hold qualified teacher status. Two members of staff hold early years teacher status and several hold a relevant early years degrees.

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Inspection activities

n The inspector and deputy manager took part in a learning walk around the nursery. n The inspector observed quality of education throughout the nursery. n The inspector sampled a range of policies, which included child protection, recruitment and behaviour management procedures. n The inspector spoke to staff and children to seek their views at various points throughout of the day. n A meeting was held with the inspector and the management team. n Parents were spoken to by the inspector to seek their views about the nursery. n The inspector carried out a joint observation with the manager.

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Inspection activities

We carried out this inspection 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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Inspection activities

5 September 2019 regulates and inspects to 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 and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, 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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Inspection activities

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Inspection activities

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Inspection activities

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Inspection activities

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