Dottie Tots Nursery School

Dottie Tots Nursery School

Unique reference number (URN): 2744041 Address: Village Hall, Crossways, Churt, Farnham, GU10 2JA Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registered with Ofsted: 04/09/2023 Registers: EYR Registered person: Dottie Tots Limited

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Safeguarding standards met

The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, children are made safer and feel safe.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect settings for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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How we evaluate safeguarding

Met: The setting has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not met: The setting has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Leaders and staff demonstrate a deep understanding of the importance of nurturing emotional bonds with children, including the very youngest children. Babies thrive on the cuddles and reassurance offered by staff, particularly during moments when they need comfort or are settling to sleep. Staff are consistently warm, responsive and attentive, establishing a caring key-person approach that is thoughtfully tailored to each child's individual needs. This approach is highly effective in promoting children's wellbeing.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children benefit from a wide range of opportunities for active physical play. Older children, for example, confidently manoeuvre ride-on cars outdoors, strengthening their coordination and control. Staff skilfully support babies' emerging large-muscle skills by encouraging them to stand and play for short periods. Children refine their hand–eye coordination through rich sensory experiences, such as scooping and transferring porridge oats. Staff recognise the value of these meaningful learning opportunities and provide ample time and creative activities to enable children to practise and master their physical skills exceptionally well.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children develop secure routines that promote their physical health and overall wellbeing very successfully. Staff embed positive hygiene practices, such as teaching older children the importance of washing their hands before meals. Staff supervise children closely during mealtimes and ensure that the food provided is appropriate for each stage of development, including supporting younger children who are weaning. These well-established routines contribute highly effectively to children's safety and welfare and help children quickly begin to make their own healthy choices and decisions.

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Achievement Expected standard

All children, including those in receipt of additional funding and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, benefit from a curriculum that helps them to make progress from their starting points. Children develop communication and language skills that help to prepare them well for later learning. For instance, children enjoy having staff read their favourite stories to them, and remain engaged and interested from beginning to end because they are able to concentrate and follow the narrative of the story. Children take time to think through questions posed by staff before confidently sharing their ideas of what might happen next. Younger children enjoy singing their favourite nursery rhymes and are able to explore and recognise rhyming sounds. Children respond when staff model mathematical concepts, such as counting how many buns are left in the baker's shop. This helps children to learn early counting and subtraction in purposeful ways. However, weaknesses in leaders'

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Achievement Expected standard

provision of staff development impacts on the quality of curriculum and teaching, preventing children from making even better progress.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Overall, leaders and staff support children to build positive attitudes to learning. Right from the start, they establish routines for children to attend the setting on a regular basis. Leaders and staff help parents to understand the benefits of timely and regular attendance. This helps children to have the opportunities to meet and play with peers and develop the good social skills they need, in readiness for their next stage in learning, including school.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Children develop secure social skills. Staff are positive role models and teach children the setting's ethos of kindness, respect and courtesy. There are opportunities for children to learn the importance of rules and why these are in place. This helps to broaden children's understanding of expectations. For instance, as children sit for story time, they learn the importance of concentrating and listening. This helps to gain children's attention and actively includes them in stories, alongside their friends.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Children play together well. The seek friends out for 'bug hunts' and join in with song times, for example. Where some children need additional support with sharing and turn-taking, staff support this well. Children learn positive attitudes to choices they make, and the value of these.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Leaders and staff have a good understanding of what they want children to achieve. They plan and adapt the curriculum to the differing ages and abilities of children well. Leaders and staff take the time to review the curriculum, to ensure that priorities for learning meet the needs of children who attend. Staff place a strong emphasis on helping children to develop their physical abilities, communication, social interaction, independence and engagement. All staff know and understand these priorities across the setting.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Staff use their knowledge to plan purposeful activities around children's everyday experiences to support and embed foundations for future learning well. From the outset, staff regularly observe children, check their progress and plan for what they want children to achieve next. They understand the ages of children and the progress that is appropriate to their age and stage of development. This helps them plan and tailor learning for children, based on their unique needs.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Teaching during activities is purposeful and enables children to achieve well across all areas of the curriculum. However, on occasion, staff do not make the most of incidental teaching opportunities to extend children's learning beyond what they already know, which limits the depth of their understanding.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Leaders and staff are passionate about providing an inclusive provision for all children. They understand the unique needs of their community and the families that attend the setting. Leaders recognise and respond to changes they can make to the daily routines to help promote children's regular attendance. For instance, staff use their good relationships with parents to agree start times to the day. Consequently, children arrive settled and ready for the day at the setting.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Where staff identify that children need extra support in their care or learning, they quickly work closely with parents to offer the tailored support that children need. Staff work closely with their local authority and other professionals, where appropriate, to ensure that there is a joined-up approach to children's care. Leaders offer suitable support from staff, who take lead roles in reviewing, planning and adapting the curriculum to ensure that all children can benefit.

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Inclusion Expected standard

When children are in receipt of additional funding, leaders use this to target areas of children's development that support their progress. For instance, staff plan a curriculum that focuses on healthy eating. They provide a variety of foods, which supports children to try new foods, to build on their experiences. Staff then share these experiences with parents, to help them to mirror choices that continue children's understanding of healthy and nutritional food choices at home.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders generally understand the strengths and areas of development in the setting. They evaluate and implement changes that have a positive impact for children. There have been recent changes to the day-to-day leadership of the setting. Furthermore, some of the staff team members are new to the setting. Leaders have placed an area of focus on helping staff embed their understanding of the curriculum. They weave changes to the focus for priorities for learning for the differing ages of children through daily routines successfully.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Staff benefit from regular supervision sessions from leaders to help them talk about and manage their workload. Staff say that leaders support their wellbeing, to help them to feel valued and supported in their roles at the setting. Leaders use regular meetings with staff to talk about workload and take action to address ideas for better working practices. For instance, recent changes to systems used to check and monitor children's learning and development are having a positive impact on reducing workload.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders' regular meetings with staff offer open discussions for them to identify and work towards their professional development, to help broaden their knowledge and skills. However, there is still more scope for leaders to target the professional development of staff to help them to reflect on their practice, identify areas for development and enhance teaching to enable children to achieve at higher levels.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children enjoy learning and develop a strong sense of belonging at the nursery. Babies and younger children develop bonds with staff. This helps them to feel comforted and reassured when they move from the care of their parents. Staff are kind and caring, which supports children's emotional wellbeing. Opportunities for children to build friendships with their peers and to develop the social skills they need for lifelong learning are a strength of the setting. Children play together and learn the importance of sharing and turn-taking. This is because staff teach them to recognise and respond to the differing needs of their friends with kindness and respect. Staff are attentive to the needs of children. They recognise opportunities to help children to become independent and to master skills that support their growing confidence in their own abilities. For instance, staff teach children how to put on

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

their coats and fasten the zips as they get ready to go outdoors.

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Leaders and staff design and implement a curriculum for the differing ages and needs of children well. For instance, there is a focus on teaching children the importance of healthy lifestyles. Children enjoy active play and try new foods, as staff prioritise this area of their learning. They develop good attitudes to learning and achieve well across the curriculum. Staff place a focus on making learning inviting and exciting. Where children, including those in receipt of additional funding, need extra support, staff recognise and respond swiftly to ensure that children receive the support they need. However, sometimes teaching is not fully focused on capturing and extending children's knowledge and skills. The staff team is new, and leaders recognise their strengths and how they can prioritise improvements that benefit children. Staff say they feel valued and supported in their roles. However, leaders are yet to

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

focus precisely on how they can raise teaching to consistently high levels so children make even better progress.

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Next steps

Leaders should strengthen targeted professional development opportunities to enhance staff's knowledge and skills, enabling them to better support children's overall progress. Leaders should support staff to make more effective use of learning opportunities within activities, in order to extend children's thinking skills.

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Address:

Village Hall Crossways, Churt Farnham GU10 2JA

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Address:

Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises

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Address:

Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 07:30 - 18:00

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About this inspection

The inspector spoke with leaders, staff and the special educational needs coordinator during the inspection.

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About this inspection

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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About this inspection

A quality assurance visit by an additional inspector was carried out at this inspection.

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection.

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other settings can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The setting reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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Expected standard

The setting is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The setting needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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Urgent improvement

services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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