Chestnut@Gascoigne

Inspection of Chestnut@Gascoigne The Coverdales, BARKING, Essex IG11 7HQ

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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 Good

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The provision is outstanding

Staff provide children with exceptional quality interactions at this stimulating and inviting nursery. Children are greeted with the warmest of welcomes by staff. Children are curious and engage with the stimulating learning opportunities that staff provide. This helps them to gain new knowledge or practise and master new skills. Staff expertly guide children's learning and development, particularly in meeting their next steps, by including their interests to keep them engaged and motivated. For example, recently, children have enjoyed learning about different fruits. Staff arranged a fruit cutting activity to support children develop their fine motor skills. Children work in small groups and name the different fruits. They use their senses to smell and taste, and describe the texture and taste.

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The provision is outstanding

Staff consistently reinforce learning through the repetition of new vocabulary and language. This supports children with speech and language delay to learn new vocabulary and improve their communication and language skills.

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The provision is outstanding

Leaders and managers have supported staff to create an ambitious curriculum, prioritising children's personal, social and emotional development. Staff understand this focus and always skilfully engage and interact with children. For example, staff offer opportunities twice a day to help children to recognise, name and express their feelings during circle time. They learn new vocabulary to describe different emotions and their meaning. This helps them to learn how to manage their behaviour and emotions extremely well, and understand the impact of their actions on others. Staff are excellent role models and encourage children to form respectful bonds with each other.

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need to do better?

n Managers support staff to develop exceptional key-person systems that support children extremely well. Staff complete accurate assessments of children's learning. They use knowledge of their key children to carefully plan for what children need to learn next. Staff offer an appropriately challenging and ambitious curriculum for all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and the most-disadvantaged children. The nursery has a trained special educational needs coordinator, who works closely with staff and delivers high-quality interventions to children with SEND. n Staff have extremely high expectations of what all children can achieve. They develop an exceptionally positive and emotionally safe environment where simple rules and routines are sensitively and consistently reinforced. Children engage in activities for an extended period of time. For instance, children enjoy

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need to do better?

working in small groups independently. They use different-size containers to fill bottles in the water area. Children use language such as 'more', 'less' and 'full' to

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need to do better?

15 May 2023 compare which bottle holds more water. Children enjoy problem-solving activities. For example, they place saucepans and spoons of different sizes to the correct-size circle and spoon shadow when tidying up. n Staff's engagement and interactions with children are inspirational, and children demonstrate excellent conversational skills. Staff expertly apply a variety of teaching skills to check children's understanding of unfamiliar words and to regularly introduce new vocabulary. For example, staff skilfully explain the word 'terrific' to older children, who did not know the meaning of the word. Staff encourage children to say 'terrific' by clapping the syllables in the word. Children used this word in context afterwards, to praise their friends for their 'terrific' handwriting. n Managers make highly effective use of early years pupil premium funding to support children's needs. For example, children develop their gross motor skills

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need to do better?

and key skills related to sports, such as football, from a coach once a week. The coach trains the nursery staff on the weekly skill. This helps staff to effectively support children to practise this skill throughout the week. This has an exceptional impact on the children's gross motor skill development. n Staff provide lots of opportunities for children to develop different mathematical concepts indoors and outdoors. For example, children count the number of times that they successfully throw the ball through the hoop. n Staff support children to develop a love of reading and books. They provide opportunities for children to immerse themselves in a text for a whole month through initiatives, including 'book of the month'. For example, in the pre-school, children are currently reading 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. Staff used funding to enhance children's experience of this book by purchasing caterpillars and

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need to do better?

leaving them in the environment for children to observe. This led to children learning about the lifecycle of a butterfly over several weeks and securing a deeper understanding of the text. Children also discuss healthy and unhealthy food by recalling parts of the story. n The manager is inspirational. She supports staff to enhance their knowledge and practice by creating bespoke training packages for each individual staff member. She is extremely organised and works with the exceptionally knowledgeable executive manager to ensure that all staff receive regular coaching and mentoring. This has resulted in the nursery gaining recognition for all staff successfully completing their paediatric first-aid training. In addition, the nursery received other awards for their exceptional work around healthy eating. n Managers and staff build exceptional partnerships with parents. Parents are extremely complimentary of the staff and the work that they do to support their

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need to do better?

children to make progress. Parents welcome the opportunity to read a book to the children in their child's room. The nursery also provides home learning packs to ensure consistency with learning at nursery and home.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

All staff possess a secure knowledge of a broad range of types of abuse and the

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Safeguarding

15 May 2023 indicators and symptoms that they should be aware of. They understand their safeguarding responsibilities and are confident about how and when they should report concerns. During staff meetings and supervision, staff's knowledge is tested on safeguarding and managers consider different scenarios to assess staff's knowledge. Staff also use flow charts of different themes of safeguarding to help them to understand the different aspects of safeguarding. All staff have attended the 'Prevent' duty, female genital mutilation, and forced marriage training.

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Setting details

Unique reference number EY436365 Local authority Barking and Dagenham Inspection number 10285795 Type of provision Childcare on non-domestic premises

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Registers

Early Years Register, Compulsory Childcare Register Day care type Full day care

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inspection

Total number of places 89 Number of children on roll 85 Name of registered person Chestnut Nursery Schools Limited

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reference number

Telephone number 02087241539 Date of previous inspection 19 October 2017

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Information about this early years setting

Chestnut@Gascoigne registered in 2011. It is located in Barking, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. The setting operates Monday to Friday from 8am to 6pm, throughout most of the year. The nursery receives funding to provide free early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. The setting employs 18 members of staff, including the manager. Of these, one member of staff holds early years professional status and 10 staff hold early years qualifications between level 2 and level 6.

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Inspection activities

n This was the first routine inspection the provider received since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The inspector discussed the impact of the pandemic with the provider and has taken that into account in their evaluation of the nursery. n The manager took the inspector on a learning walk to discuss the early years curriculum and the different learning environments. n Snack time and lunchtime in the pre-school room and baby room were observed by the inspector. n The manager conducted a joint observation with the inspector in the pre-school room. n Parents, children and staff were spoken to during the inspection by the inspector. Their views were considered by the inspector. n The inspector conducted professional discussions with the manager and the executive leadership team. n The inspector observed a sample of documents.

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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

15 May 2023 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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