Setting 2498132

Childcare on domestic premises

Unique reference number (URN): 2498132 Registered with Ofsted: 18/01/2019 Registers: EYR

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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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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Strong standard

Relationships between staff, children and their families are highly positive and warm. Children are highly respected, and their views are valued. For example, toddlers and pre- school children vote on which book they would like to read at story time. They learn about the process of democracy as their votes are counted and a result is produced.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Strong standard

Children are polite, cooperative and wonderfully well behaved. Babies have the opportunity to engage in simple daily routines, such as circle time, care-giving tasks, nappy changes and eating their snacks and meals together. Staff support babies in learning about the importance of sitting for short periods, listening to adults and each other and being patient in an age- and stage-appropriate way. Staff support toddlers and children in respecting the rules and boundaries clearly embedded in practice. They line up before going outside and on returning. Staff speak to children about the behaviours expected of them, taking into account the context of their unique surroundings. Children animatedly can explain that they must not touch certain plant life and that they must always be within sight of an adult when outside.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Strong standard

Leaders proactively promote attendance. They speak to parents about how they will tackle absences, as they understand and value the importance of consistency in supporting children's care, welfare and learning.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children's safety is paramount in this setting. Following a recent review of how children's whereabouts are managed, rigorous processes to ensure their wellbeing are now embedded in everyday practice. Children learn to assess their own risks and make choices about how to navigate the tricky terrain in the forest school area and on woodland walks. Children confidently recap the rules for going to the forest school area and further afield, such as to the woods or the National Trust common. Staff ensure that children understand the consequences of certain actions, such as touching berries or eating mushrooms, and the negative impact this could have on their health.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children's care needs are sensitively and routinely met. Staff support babies to settle in. They ensure that careful adaptations are made so new babies can spend time with their most familiar adults during the day. This helps them to get used to the new routines and provides them with the reassurance they require to build confidence to explore their new surroundings and learn to enjoy attending.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Leaders promote an eco-friendly ethos. For instance, they offer a nutritious menu of snacks and main meals without meat, helping to reduce their carbon footprint. Babies, toddlers and pre-school children benefit from lots of fresh air and exercise. Toddlers and pre-school children learn about the importance of caring for nature and living things. They delight in feeding the setting's rabbit every day and contribute to his care.

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Achievement Expected standard

All children make secure progress in their learning. Staff are knowledgeable about promoting communication and language, and any child who falls behind in this area is supported to catch up. Babies enjoy small-group singing sessions and times to share books with staff. Toddlers and pre-school children read books with staff, play story characters on a pretend stage and enjoy picking items from the nursery rhyme sack. This helps them to develop an early love of reading and songs. However, children do not yet excel across all areas of their development because staff do not always proactively adapt their teaching or take every opportunity to intervene as early as possible to reduce the barriers to their learning they may face. Nevertheless, older children are highly independent, as this is a high priority in this setting. Overall, all children are suitably well prepared for school.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

The setting curriculum is typically taught well. Staff know the children well and routinely monitor their progress. Leaders and staff recognise and value opportunities for babies, toddlers and pre-school children to build on their personal confidence and social skills. Babies keenly seek the comfort of familiar staff and learn to be content alongside one another, to share their space and use the same resources with support. Toddlers and pre- school children engage in turn-taking throughout the day and develop imaginative games collaboratively with their peers. They also enjoy lots of social time, mixing together during snacks and meals each day.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Overall, children enjoy broad opportunities that promote different aspects of their learning. For example, staff provide babies with sensory exploration activities outside, including sawdust, water and sand. They gently encourage babies to access these and deliberately place the resources at different heights to promote babies' physical movements. Staff support communication and language as they introduce key vocabulary and some new words and sounds as they explore. Toddlers and pre-school children enjoy time in the forest school area. They create and develop imaginative games in the mud kitchen, take turns painting with rollers and work together to solve problems, such as how to get a small-world vehicle dislodged from the water play tunnels. Staff ensure that toddlers and pre-school children learn mathematical concepts, such as counting items all together and considering more and less through everyday routines and activities, which builds on these skills. Each

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

day there is an opportunity to explore further afield, and staff talk to children about seasonal changes on their routine woodland walk. Staff give toddlers and pre-school children plenty of time to think and share their thoughts and ideas, which helps to build on their communication skills. However, staff do not routinely have the highest expectations of what their key children can achieve. This means the staff's approach to teaching is not consistently as rigorous as it could be to help all children excel.

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Inclusion Expected standard

Staff make highly accurate assessments of children's learning. Leaders regularly check in with key persons and have an oversight of children's progress across the provision. Leaders support staff to understand their duty to raise concerns about children's development, and when it is evident children are behind and require additional support, they receive it. For example, staff routinely complete additional, more targeted communication and language assessments for children who require them. They speak to their parents and work highly collaboratively on improving this aspect of children's development. As a result, they implement interventions, including one-to-one activities, peer buddy work and small-group work, to help children catch up. However, on occasion, staff overlook children who are not yet at risk but could be at risk of falling behind. This is because they are not always consistent in identifying and finding ways to reduce all barriers a child may face as

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders and managers are passionate, and they know their setting context extremely well. They are accurately reflective and set key priorities for improvement. Leaders recently met their legal duty to notify Ofsted of a significant event related to staff-to-child ratios. As a result of the event, they have taken effective action to improve how children's whereabouts are managed, specifically during transitions between the main building, the forest school area and further afield. This helps to ensure their safety at all times. Parent feedback is overwhelmingly positive. Leaders and staff work closely with parents and carers. They offer them lots of guidance, support and advice. This helps to foster continuity between the setting and home.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Recruitment is robust, and all managers' and staff's suitability is ensured internally when they first start. Leaders acknowledge that they did not update Ofsted with suitability information for all individuals working with children as required by their registration type. However, once they recognised this, they were able to provide evidence that they were acting promptly and proactively to put it right. A comprehensive induction and ongoing programme of support for staff helps them to manage their workload and wellbeing. Leaders tackle any poor practice swiftly. However, support for staff could be further strengthened to enhance their teaching skills and their approach to supporting children's learning, helping them proactively reduce barriers and excel.

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

Children are very content, happy and settled. Leaders and staff get to know the children and their families extremely well. They provide a home-from-home environment for the children. All children are highly respected, valued and listened to at this setting. Their understanding of the rules and boundaries is excellent. Children are highly cooperative and have ample opportunity to take appropriate risks and learn to keep themselves safe in their surroundings. All children have the opportunity to learn key independence skills. This is particularly well sequenced across the age groups. For example, babies learn to feed themselves while older children pour their own drinks from a jug. Babies also learn to cooperate with putting on their outdoor wetsuits, while older children get into these with limited help and put on their own wellington boots before heading outside. This helps to ensure all children are equipped with the key skills they need for the next stage of learning

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

Leaders and staff make effective use of their unique rural location to enhance children's experiences. The curriculum ethos of prioritising exploration of the outdoor environment is embedded. Children develop a love of nature; they eagerly engage in sensory experiences outside, and they learn about the importance of taking care of animals, plants and the planet. Staff provide children with many broad opportunities that mainly focus on building core skills, such as communication and language, personal, social and emotional development and physical skills. Alongside these, staff weave in wider learning to promote children's understanding of the world around them, literacy, mathematics, expressive arts and imagination. All children are fully included within the provision. They demonstrate positive attitudes to learning, and all children make secure progress in their development alongside their peers.

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Next steps

Leaders should support staff to increase their expectations of what children can achieve and more proactively reduce emerging barriers to children's learning to help them excel. Leaders should support staff to embed high-quality teaching more consistently and enhance their approach to promoting children's individual learning needs.

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About this inspection

The inspector spoke with leaders, staff, parents and/or carers 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

We carried out this inspection as a result of a risk assessment, following information we received about the provider. The provider will be able to give parents further information about this.

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About this setting

Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 08:00 - 18:00

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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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