Packington Childrens Centre @Bentham Court

Inspection of Packington Childrens Centre @Bentham Court Bentham Under Fives Centre, New Bentham Court, London N1 3AA

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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

The highly passionate leaders and staff create an extremely welcoming and vibrant learning environment that is carefully planned with an extensive range of fun and exciting activities. This means that children benefit from a very rich and ambitious curriculum. Leaders and staff have extremely high expectations for all children's learning and behaviour. There is strong emphasis on all children being nurtured and supported to reach their full potential. Staff are highly skilled at identifying children who need extra support with their learning. They swiftly put targeted help into place to enable children to flourish and move forward in their development. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language receive superb levels of attention from the well- qualified and knowledgeable team. Consequently, all children make strong progress in relation to their starting points.

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The provision is outstanding

Staff know children and families exceptionally well. They conduct home visits before children join and implement a very child-focused settling-in process. This helps children to develop very trusting relationships with staff. Consequently, children are happy, secure, and show very high levels of emotional well-being. Furthermore, children are inquisitive learners with highly positive attitudes to trying new things. For instance, staff skilfully broaden children's vocabulary and understanding of the world as they explore noodles with chopsticks. Staff encourage children to make predictions and comparisons and use lots of mathematical language. Children also delight when exploring a globe and different animals from around the world. Staff are excellent at supporting children to recall prior knowledge, and expertly extend their learning.

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need to do better?

n Leaders and staff form exceptional relationships with other professionals to best support children's individual needs and personal learning. For instance, they work in close partnership with health visitors, speech and language therapists, children's mental health practitioners and educational psychologists to ensure that children receive holistic support. This means that children benefit from strong consistency in their care and future learning. n Staff are superb at supporting children's home language. This is apparent when they gain key words and learn songs in their home language, which are regularly used during play and throughout the day. Furthermore, ideas for home learning activities are translated into multiple languages to make them accessible to all parents and carers. This helps all families to feel extremely welcome and valued. n Leaders expertly assess how to use additional funding. For example, children

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need to do better?

benefit from enriching forest-school sessions throughout the week. This gives them first-hand experiences of nature. Furthermore, it also supports their

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need to do better?

8 February 2024 physical skills and emotional health and broadens their understanding of the natural world. n Staff are highly attuned to supporting children's and families' emotional well- being. This is evident when staff engage in high-quality training to raise their awareness of supporting families who have experienced trauma. They also use 'mood bears' to teach children about different feelings and to help them to regulate their emotions. Staff's interactions with children are extremely respectful. As a result, children form strong bonds with staff. They frequently seek them out during play and laugh and smile. n Leaders and staff place strong emphasis on helping children to lead healthy lifestyles. Staff work closely with parents and carers to provide children with nutritious meals and snacks. They also ensure that children are active and benefit from lots of fresh air and exercise. Furthermore, staff engage in oral

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need to do better?

health campaigns and children receive a new toothbrush and toothpaste each term to help to promote good teeth cleaning practices. n Staff successfully create a broad and stimulating curriculum, which captures children's interests extremely well. Staff are successful at using assessment to identify what children need to learn next. Children are enthusiastic learners and are clearly thriving. n The inspirational team constantly evaluate their practice and are highly reflective of practice. They are very driven and make continuous improvements to the centre. There are strong arrangements in place to coach and mentor staff in order to ensure even greater levels of consistency across the teaching team. This outstanding commitment to self-evaluation means that children and families are constantly achieving highly positive outcomes. n Partnership working with parents is a real strength. Parents are extremely

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need to do better?

complimentary and have nothing but praise for the team. They highly value how kind and caring the staff are and feel that their children are extremely happy and safe.

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Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

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Safeguarding

There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

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Setting details

Unique reference number EY488672 Local authority Islington Inspection number 10305183 Type of provision Childcare on non-domestic premises Registers Early Years Register Day care type Full day care

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inspection

Total number of places 32 Number of children on roll 32 Name of registered person The London Borough of Islington

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reference number

Telephone number 0207 527 4008 Date of previous inspection 14 February 2018

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Information about this early years setting

Packington Children's Centre @ Bentham Court registered in 2015. The centre is managed by Islington Borough Council and receives funding to provide free early education for two-, three- and four-year-old children. The centre operates each weekday between 8am and 6pm, all year round. The centre employs eight core members of staff, most of whom hold appropriate early years qualifications ranging from level 3 to level 7.

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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 leaders and has taken that into account in their evaluation of the centre. n The inspector completed a learning walk with the leaders to discuss the intentions for children's learning. n The inspector carried out a number of observations and assessed the quality of education. n Parents', children's and staff members' views were considered during the inspection. n A wide range of documentation was viewed, including staff qualifications and training certificates.

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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

8 February 2024 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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