Childminder

Childminder

Unique reference number (URN): EY306648 Registered with Ofsted: 17/06/2005 Registers: EYR, CCR, VCR

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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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Achievement Strong standard

Children flourish as confident communicators. They learn and use a wide variety of new words quickly. Children take turns in conversations, listen and offer their ideas and suggestions. They are curious and enjoy asking and answering interesting open-ended questions and solve problems. They develop excellent attitudes to learning.

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Achievement Strong standard

Children make rapid progress from their individual starting points, with any barriers to their learning swiftly identified and addressed through highly effective targeted support. This enables all children to develop their communication skills and close gaps in their learning with confidence.

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Achievement Strong standard

Children are very well prepared and successfully supported through transitions, including to school. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities benefit from the childminder sharing ideas and targets with other professionals to ensure transitions between settings are smooth and maximise the wellbeing of each child.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Strong standard

The childminder successfully creates a culture that is courteous and respectful. Kindness and nurture run through all daily routines. Children learn to speak politely and listen; they persist when they find things hard and confidently ask the childminder to help when needed. The childminder is equally respectful; she allows children the space and provides encouragement to try, successfully instilling in children the inner belief that they will be successful if they have a go.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Strong standard

Children show the best possible behaviour. The childminder blends high expectations with deep care and emotional support, ensuring all children reach their potential. Collaboratively, they build trust in each other through warm and nurturing relationships and consistent, firm boundaries. When children find positive behaviour challenging, the childminder proactively finds solutions from research. Children thrive as they understand the routines and expectations. The childminder offers reminders, such as saying, 'First we will tidy the bricks away, and then we will get the musical instruments.' Despite initial reluctance, children join in, recognising that the younger children are doing so, so they should too.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Strong standard

Barriers to attendance are swiftly identified, and through respectful conversations, parents are reminded that if a child is absent, they will miss out on developmental opportunities. Attendance patterns have significantly improved as a result.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Prioritising and improving children's welfare and wellbeing are recognised by the childminder as a strength. Targeted observations assess each child's level of wellbeing using a scale. With the aim that all children are consistently at the highest level, if there is a dip, then solutions are found and adaptions made. The childminder has a personalised approach to settling each child. Based on an excellent understanding of children's needs, they listen to parents' concerns and adapt processes to ensure everyone remains happy. Children settle quickly, and parents find this reassuring.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Policies are amended immediately to reflect changes in statutory requirements. Changes to mealtimes have resulted in closer supervision of children eating. Children recognise how to keep themselves safe and ask for help to close the strap on their seat and comment that younger children must sit in a high chair.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children talk about healthy food and understand that unhealthy foods are bad for their teeth. The childminder works with families to provide healthy lunch boxes and offers gentle but clear reminders if they do not.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children gain an excellent understanding of their changing emotions. For example, they ask for a sleep when they are tired. The childminder has embedded a mutually respectful culture where children can increasingly manage their own feelings and behaviour.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard

Children's personal care practices are exemplary. The childminder recognises when children are ready to use the potty, and their professional knowledge successfully encourages parents to join in at home, even when reluctant. Children rapidly become increasingly independent.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

The childminder implements an ambitious, high-quality curriculum underpinned by high expectations for all children, which links to their individual stage of development. Carefully planned activities deliver precisely the skills and knowledge the childminder has assessed each child needs.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Developing children's passion for books is woven through the curriculum. Children gain new knowledge through engaging story sessions. The books available are regularly changed to include new themes and topics alongside key learning points. For instance, they support children to understand other children's behaviour or to learn more about arctic animals. Regular trips to the library encourage children further. Daily nursery rhyme sessions develop children's language. Careful attention to include visual prompts is highly successful in supporting children to learn new words in English when they speak alternative languages at home.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Highly effective teaching maximises children's learning. The childminder is precise, aiming to increase children's vocabulary. Every conversation delivers more. For example, the childminder narrates and uses words such as roll, squeeze, pat and press as children use malleable material, which allows them to learn and practise words in a sensory context.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Children are gently encouraged to keep focused, reminded to 'have another go' and to 'look and check carefully' when completing activities to name emotions. Children are beginning to control their impulses and sustain attention for a longer time.

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Curriculum and teaching Strong standard

Physical development is prioritised, including jumping, hopping and skipping, alongside more targeted support to develop small-muscle strength in hands, which allows children increasing independence in manipulating toys and smaller equipment. Children begin to recognise numerals, to compare quantities and order numbers one to 10 as they describe how many more spoonfuls are needed to fill the Gruffalo's crumble to accurately match the corresponding number shape.

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Inclusion Strong standard

The childminder assesses children's needs as soon as they start, using precise assessment programmes created to identify difficulties with speech sounds, understanding, using language, or social interactions. Once potential barriers are identified, the childminder finds time each day to provide targeted support to effectively address these. High expectations are evident for all children, and the progress all children make, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those learning English as an additional language, is clearly apparent and celebrated. For example, when children are nonverbal, the childminder adapts her approach from questioning to commenting and labelling, which results in children beginning to use single words frequently. If children's progress is slow, the childminder questions their approach, then researches and implements different ideas.

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Inclusion Strong standard

The childminder regularly reviews the progress children make and shares detailed summaries with parents. There is persistence and consistency in making sure that any gaps in development are swiftly identified, planning support tailored to each child. Opportunities to collaborate with parents and other professionals are maximised with the view that, 'We will get there together.' This consistent support around the child is highly successful in delivering positive outcomes for every child.

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Inclusion Strong standard

An embedded and finely tuned inclusive approach delivers the childminder's focused vision for all children to feel included and valued. As a result, all children quickly gain confidence, flourish and make sustained progress in their achievements.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

The childminder is perceptive, analysing the strengths of the setting and identifying areas to improve accurately. This results in ambitious outcomes for all children. Noticing an increase in children who speak English as an additional language in the area, the childminder quickly engaged in professional learning to increase their knowledge of strategies to support children to learn English quickly. Learning that using children's home language can unlock learning, resulted in adaptations to teaching that are highly impactful.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

Recognising the importance of outdoor play and the limitations of their garden, the childminder provides a wide range of trips in the local area to widen children's experiences of the community beyond the setting.

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Leadership and governance Strong standard

The childminder is confident in their strength as an experienced professional with extensive knowledge of child development. They take the responsibilities of keeping children safe and maximising their progress very seriously. High standards are set and maintained because the childminder is self-reflective. They constantly assess what works well and what needs to change. They create positive relationships with parents who value the childminder's knowledge. These relationships facilitate confidence and a mutual trust and allow for timely, harder conversations to occur when appropriate. This places the best interests of every child at the heart of the setting.

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Compulsory Childcare Register requirements

This setting has met the requirements of the compulsory part of the Childcare Register.

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Register

When we check if settings meet the Compulsory Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes:

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Voluntary Childcare Register requirements

This setting has met the requirements of the voluntary part of Childcare Register.

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Register

When we check if settings meet the Voluntary Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes:

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

Children flourish within this home-based environment. The childminder offers a wide range of highly engaging and rigorously planned activities. These maximise the experiences children encounter to practise and embed the next steps in their development. Children are extremely motivated and enthusiastic to join in with every part of the day. Children have a thirst for learning that is embraced by the childminder. Children show they are familiar with the routines and expectations of the day as they remind visitors what happens next.

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

Children are courteous and respectful, as the childminder is an exemplary role model. The childminder aspires for all children to have a voice and be heard, to be included and happy. Targeted attention on children's wellbeing ensures every child thrives, as they feel safe and cared for.

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

Children grow in confidence and independence as the childminder creates strong, secure and nurturing relationships with all children and their families. The collaborative approach with parents and other professionals ensures that all children, particularly those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those learning English as an additional language, make accelerated progress. Children are extremely well prepared for the next stages in their education.

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

Each child is considered unique and highly capable. The childminder is relentlessly ambitious for all. Thorough systems, such as precise assessments when children start, allow early identification of potential barriers to learning. This information is quickly applied to provide an individualised curriculum that is highly successful in overcoming these barriers. Children learn new vocabulary quickly; the childminder regularly provides the meanings to new words. For example, she explains hibernation or the differences between a 'narwhal' and a 'walrus'. Children are excited to share new knowledge and say, 'Did you know Arctic Squirrels hibernate in winter?' Parents comment on the increasing range of new words their children know and use.

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Next steps

The childminder should sustain their work to ensure continued improvement and high standards. They should focus on creating a transformational impact on the outcomes and experiences of disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, those who are known (or previously known) to children's social care, and those who may face other barriers to their learning and/or wellbeing.

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About this inspection

The inspector spoke with the childminder, parents and children 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 setting

Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday : 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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