There has been a pattern emerging of the specific areas that inspectors have focused on from October 2009 to January 2010, and this article is the third in a series of four that will provide the information you will need to review and evaluate your EYFS provision. Of course, future inspections may have a change of focus, but this series of articles will give you a base from where you can start to reflect on your provision. I suggest that you start a self-evaluation exercise by reading through the inspectors' statements, reflecting on your setting and whether or not such judgements would be an accurate reflection of your provision. The Ofsted reports begin with a brief description of the setting and a small section entitled Overall Effectiveness of the Early Years Provision, which summarises the main findings. The main sections of the report follow: What Steps Need to be Taken to Improve Provision Further? This section lists as bullet points, the recommendations that have been made for the setting to improve. The Effectiveness of Leadership and Management of the Early Years Provision The following topics were usually covered: Safeguarding, including recruitment of suitably checked staff Risk assessments Partnerships with parents Links with other settings or outside agencies Self-evaluation, including management aspirations for quality provision and capacity for improvement Professional development of staff Inclusion and special educational needs Health and safety policies and procedures The Quality and Standards of the Early Years Provision The following topics were usually covered: Children's well-being, behaviour and motivation to learn Settling in procedures and practice Staff knowledge of the EYFS Staff relationships and interactions with the children Descriptions of what the children are engaged in, and how the staff support their learning The learning environment including resources and equipment, indoor and outdoor Healthy lifestyle choices including hygiene practices Inclusion and Diversity We continue by looking at the theme of Enabling Environments. Throughout the reports there was a clear focus on the following: Observation and Assessment Planning The Learning Environment The Wider Context All statements from the reports appear here in italics. WHAT STEPS NEED TO BE TAKEN TO IMPROVE PROVISION FURTHER? Observation and Assessment refine the organisation to allow staff to have sufficient time to ensure that assessments and records of learning and development are kept up-to-date and continue to inform future planning for children's next steps. ensure assessments of children's developmental progress are up-to-date and use this information to plan and implement focused, adult-led activities in all six areas which are tailored to meet children's individual learning needs, capturing their interest. develop further the links between sensitive observational assessments and planning of activities that include children's interests, so that all children's individual needs continue to be met. strengthen the process of observation and evaluation in order to effectively plan for each child to support personalised learning and involve children in learning which takes them into the local community. ensure that children's next steps are being clearly identified and used in leading future planning. develop a more systematic system to illustrate observations and assessments of children's achievements to show how children are making steady progress towards the early learning goals. continue to develop methods to ensure that parents home observations can be used to contribute to their children's assessment process. ensure that parents have opportunities to add to their child's records on a regular basis. improve the procedures for obtaining information about children's starting points in their learning to further support the assessment arrangements. update assessment overviews for each child half termly. develop the system for assessing children's progress so that specific groups and areas of learning can be monitored. develop all staff's confidence in planning for individual children's needs. Planning plan and resource a challenging environment both inside and outside where children's play can be supported and extended across all areas of the learning. where possible link the indoor and outdoor environments so that children can move freely between them and ensure that babies have daily opportunities for outdoor play. ensure that the next steps in children's development are forwarded securely into the future planning for individual children, to give a clear picture of progress. ensure all displayed plans of activities are linked to the Early Years Foundation Stage. increase planning for the outdoor area to create a stimulating environment that offers a range of activities which will encourage children's interest, curiosity and overall learning. ensure opportunities for outside play are planned and taken on a daily basis. plan and implement a wider range of activities which enable children to explore the local community and develop their understanding of the world around them. extend daily opportunity for strenuous exercise, including climbing and balancing. develop further staff's knowledge and understanding of how to identify the learning priorities for each child and how to plan for their future learning. plan activities based on first hand experiences that encourage exploration, experimentation and observation. expand on opportunities for children to use writing in everyday situations for example on art work and in the role play areas, and to further develop independence at lunchtime. provide additional resources to help children find out and identify the uses of everyday technology and use information and communication technology and programmable toys to support their learning. develop the planning and provision of experiences delivered through outdoor as well as indoor play. develop further the range of experiences designed to support children's growing independence. The Learning Environment ensure children have more opportunities to choose their activities by providing them with more options and establish outside activities on a free flow basis. develop the outdoor area so that children can play outdoors, whatever the weather, by providing a cover, and enjoy a wider range of outdoor play equipment. continue to develop the use of the outside play area to provide regular opportunities for children to investigate living things. further develop the use of the outside area to enable children further opportunities to freely explore, use their senses and be physically active and exuberant across all areas of learning. review the organisation of registration and snack time to ensure the individual needs of children are met. review the organisation of snack and meal times to ensure every child receives an enjoyable and challenging learning and development experience that is tailored to meet their individual needs. review and adapt routines of the day including those at lunchtime to ensure children do not wait for long periods of time and to provide children with privacy when having nappies changed. develop further the organisation of meal times to nurture children's social and self-help skills, including providing suitable equipment, such as plates at breakfast time and spoons for all younger or less able children. review routines and how resources are presented to children to ensure that there is time and space for children to concentrate on activities and experiences, develop their own interests and comfortably access play equipment such as the computer. monitor the organisation of the session to ensure that every child spends time outdoors to enjoy fresh air and exercise. improve the organisation of furniture and equipment for children to ensure that they are able to make independent choices. extend the range of toys and resources which reflect diversity and difference in society. ensure the play spaces and resources are fully utilised in order to help meet the individual needs of each child. further improve the presentation and resourcing of role play situations, and the programme for literacy in relation to 'raising the achievements for boys'. consider displaying print, numbers and shapes in the outdoor learning environment to support the older children's independent learning. provide a range of programmable toys to extend children's interest in technology. promote and extend children's development and learning, for example, by making some role play and book areas more appealing and interesting for children to promote their curiosity and interest. review procedures to ensure resources are clean and appropriately labelled. ensure the environment and resources in the toddler room are monitored to make sure there is sufficient clear floor space for children to move around safely. extend the resources to include natural materials and domestic objects and an environment that portrays positive images of diverse people and their lives. extend access to large physical materials to support children's learning. The Wider Context develop procedures for liaising with other providers delivering the Early Years Foundation Stage to ensure that every child receives an enjoyable and challenging learning and development experience which promotes their continuity of learning and care. review and extend the information shared between each setting that children attend to ensure their social, emotional and educational needs are met. develop effective links with other early years providers to ensure continuity in children's care, learning and development. develop links with other settings that children attend to share information about their welfare and development. develop and strenghten links with other early years providers in the community, to promote a shared commitment to children's ongoing learning and development. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT OF THE EARLY YEARS PROVISION Observation and Assessment The manager has systems in place to share information with other providers of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) when children begin to attend other settings to ensure the children's care, play and learning in one setting complements another. Children's transition to school is gradually and sensitively facilitated and home books are also used by other pre-schools and settings which children attend to enable consistent and complementary childcare which promotes children's progress well. Practitioners use effective means to find out about each child to ensure they can fully understand and support each of them. For example, parents are invited to complete an 'All about me book' with their child to share at pre-school. Initial information about children's likes, dislikes and interests are requested at the time the children start attending in order to give staff a basis for planning activities that the children will enjoy. Limited information is recorded about children's starting points but careful observations of children's progress ensures all aspects of children's needs are met with success. Staff carry out regular observations and assessments on children's learning, although at present, observations are not always consistently linked to the child's next steps. This means information gathered from observation is not always fully recorded and linked into future planning. Planning Judgements were not normally made within this section of the sample reports. The Learning Environment All children have access to a wide range of resources and materials that are suitable for their age and stage of development. The equipment is stored at a low-level in each of the base rooms to ensure children of all ages can access the resources independently, promoting their freedom of choice and decision making skills effectively. The sessions run smoothly and children benefit from the free flow environment where they can make their own choice of indoor or outdoor play. Resources have been organised so that children can freely select toy resources of their choice, including a well resourced book area, but the role play area is small and lacks quality resources to sustain children's interest and initiate quality play. Children make use of the garden area at a designated time but after garden time there are three consecutive whole group times which does not effectively meet the learning needs of all the children attending. The organisation of larger group sessions, including registration and snack times are not as successful as some children loose interest and focus. Staff provide children with an extremely exciting and interesting environment in which to play and learn. All areas of the nursery are bright and attractive with furniture and equipment effectively organised to provide children with a fully enabling environment in which they make choices over their play and learning. Free-flow activities enable children to exercise choice throughout their day and they are encouraged to learn and explore at their own pace by a skilful staff team. Staff use walkie-talkies when outside with the children which means if an incident occurs they are able to contact a person inside the building quickly. The ratio of adults to children is high so that the children are always very well supervised, and the staff can work with small groups when they want to develop specific skills such as understanding letters and sounds. All staff have an input into the success and improvements needed within the different areas of the nursery on a daily basis, the laminated cards around each area include suggestions for improvements and details of how the area was utilised each day giving the staff the ability to evaluate how well all resources are being used. The staff set up table top activities with consideration to the presentation, making everything look exciting and stimulating to the children, these are changed repeatedly through the day offering the children an ever changing environment. There are sufficient resources and equipment available to meet the needs of the children attending, although at times some items are not spotlessly clean and suffer from signs of wear and tear. Space is mostly used well to meet the children's needs, although play in the outdoor area is not fully planned for to maximise opportunities for children's physical development and good health. Staff in each room take responsibility for a budget to purchase resources which they identify as being required for activities. Older children are regularly involved in the decision making for the spending of their budget. The Wider Context Although the nursery liaise with other agencies to support children's medical needs, there are no systems in place to liaise with other providers delivering the education programme to support children's continuity of care and learning. There are established channels of communication between the nursery and other providers such as childminders and schools because they provide their learning journals and transfer reports to those settings. However, there is little information received from other settings to enable the nursery to fully complement the care given or ensure they are aware of issues that may affect the children. There are well-established channels of communication between all partners supporting individual children on a regular basis to ensure information is shared and used to promote children's achievements and well-being. For example, excellent relationships exist with outside agencies, such as social workers, speech and language therapists, advisory teachers and the area Senco to ensure high quality continuous care. The setting is extremely committed to working in partnership with other agencies and early years providers. For example, it takes a lead role in working with other local pre-school provision to promote best practice. Management are being very proactive in seeking solutions to the challenge of establishing partnerships with children's other EYFS providers, many of whom are based outside the borough, to ensure consistency of learning support. The Nursery works productively with a number of external agencies and often takes a leading role in collaborative action to support individual families. Teaching staff are invited into school to meet with the children and the photographic record of the classroom, teacher and other key elements of school life are used within the nursery to help children become familiar with the school. In addition role play areas become classrooms and dressing up clothes include school uniform to help children to feel positive as they make their next step in their development. The link with the school is well established and there is a positive approach to sharing skills and information. This ensures the transition is managed very effectively for the children, in their continuity of learning and care needs. Teachers attend pre-school sessions and pre-school staff attend settling in sessions with the children, to further support their successful move into school. THE QUALITY AND STANDARDS OF THE EARLY YEARS PROVISION Observation and Assessment Staff make frequent observation notes and photograph evidence of what children are doing. They therefore have a good grasp of each child's stage of development and can ensure that they continue to provide them with appropriate challenge to progress. However, they do not regularly summarise their observations to make summative assessments which are linked to the developmental expectations shown in 'Practice Guidance for the Early Years Foundation Stage' for the age and stage of the child. When children move to a new room and have a new key worker, parents are informed and the child has introductory visits to smooth the transition. However, summative assessments are not routinely made or shared with parents to assist the transition and ensure that the child's next steps are well known and provided for straightaway. Individual learning and development records are in place for each child, which includes concise observations, next steps and baseline assessments of children's starting points. Staff maintain an individual scrapbook for each child containing samples of work and use a development matters tracker to assess and track children's progress. They make regular observations of the children and use this to inform future planning. There is currently a minor weakness with regard to identifying children's next steps for learning, as staff do not consistently use the EYFS elements. Learning journeys are shared with parents and carers enabling them to contribute observations of their children's achievements at home. This sharing of information ensures that staff have a clear picture of the whole child, enabling them to support each one appropriately to make good progress towards the early learning goals. The information staff gather on children's capabilities is not being used to effectively implement quality focus activities, targeting their next steps consistently in all six areas. Regular planned observations are being completed which are included in the children's assessment records and are enhanced by photographs of their involvement in a wide range of activities with a description of their involvement in the activity. The staff demonstrate a sensitive understanding of the children's individual learning and identify their future learning in the planned observations which ensures that activities are matched to the children's needs. Assessment through high quality observations is rigorous and the information gained is used very effectively in planning. Systematic and spontaneous observations track progression closely, next steps are identified to feed the planning for every child on a weekly basis whilst achievements made at home are fed into the learning journals. These methods mean that children are challenged to reach their potential and excellent levels of achievement. Staff have detailed records on each child's progress and preferred methods of learning and activity. As yet the assessments are not recorded in a way which makes it possible for the staff to compare the progress made by different groups of children, or the progress made in different areas of learning, so the manager cannot evaluate precisely how well the provision matches the children's needs. Planning is organised around children's interests and staff identify the next steps in their learning. However, at present there is not in place a robust system to accurately track children's progress towards the early learning goals. Although parental observations from home are shared with staff, the information is not yet used to contribute to their assessment process. Planning Planning has been completely revised since the last inspection to ensure that children's interests are catered for better and so that they can make choices and develop their independence well. The impact of these changes can be seen in happy children who engage well with their learning through play. Planning reflects a good range of learning opportunities across all six areas of learning and includes differentiation between the differing age groups that attend. Staff are skilled in planning using children's interests and show flexibility to capitalise on learning situations involving experts, other professionals and parent volunteers with special interests. Activities are well-planned, based on accurate observations and assessments and matched to the full range of children's needs. However, although the next steps in children's development are identified, they are not always forwarded securely into the future planning for individual children, to give a clear picture of progress. Relevant observations are clearly recorded in Learning Journeys and used effectively to identify their next steps. These are noted on a weekly planning sheet, to ensure additional resources are provided to support the identified next steps for individual children. Each child has an individual play plan which is reviewed on a regular basis to ensure they are making good progress. The staff meet daily to review the progress the children have made and to plan for the next day. Staff regularly observe what children know and do and appropriately link this to the areas of learning. However, staff are unclear as to how they use this assessment to effectively identify children's individual next steps in learning. Consequently, planned activities are not yet effective in reflecting and supporting children's next steps through well considered suitable challenges. For instance, children are interested in developing mark making skills by joining dots together to form recognisable letters. Staff support children by repeating this opportunity but are unclear as to appropriate next steps in learning for children. Planning allows for the spontaneous occurrence, for example, children's interest and excitement in a sudden snow fall. They implement appropriate procedures for assessing children, using this information to inform daily activity planning and thereby promote children's individual development. However, this is not fully promoted because assessment procedures do not consistently include a full picture of children's next steps and the planning of structured activities does not always reflect individual needs. Planning is generic for all rooms and ages of children and, therefore, does not show how activities will be adapted and differentiated to suit the different ages and abilities. Individual plans for children concentrate on activities to be provided rather than focussing on the next steps of learning to be promoted. Tracking systems are not established to ensure planning is balanced across the six areas of learning to support children's progress towards the early learning goals. Good systems are in place for pre planning activities and opportunities. For example, on weekly planning sheets, by using a red pen staff record children's individual interests, and by using a blue pen to record activities and opportunities, staff can, at a glance, ensure there is a balance across all areas of learning. The staff take responsibility for planning each area of learning for half a term so that over a year they will all become very knowledgeable about the learning opportunities they can provide for the children. The Learning Environment The environment is secure and safe, but provides children with very good challenge. All children access outdoor play on a daily basis and are encouraged to take turns with popular resources in the enclosed outdoor area. Staff make some provision for individual preferences, as children are able to select resources that they would like to play with. However, the activities and experiences provided, lack variety and offer limited opportunities for them to be physically exuberant and explore and investigate, using flexible resources. Good use is made of the outdoor area to extend the learning environment. It is used in all weathers as children bring their own wet weather clothes and the setting provides some also. Currently, resources and plans for the outside environment do not fully embrace all areas of learning. Although the garden is adjacent to most rooms, children do not have the opportunity to free-flow between the spaces and babies do not go out every day. Opportunities for children to investigate and explore the features of objects and living things in the outdoor environment are not fully exploited. The planning and provision of resources for children's play outside is less extensive than that for children's play inside and as a result there are fewer experiences that richly capture their interest and that fire their imaginations when outside. The children enjoy playing outdoors and have many activities to choose from including riding vehicles and growing plants. The area is motivating but it does not help to reinforce the children's familiarity with sounds, numbers and shapes and the manager has identified this as an area to develop soon. Children are extremely confident and self-motivated within the nursery, selecting their own resources and developing their own games from the extremely good, child-height storage. The daily routine is well-established yet flexible and includes a good range of adult-led and child-initiated activities. The resources are displayed in a manner which invites the children to investigate them. The children are inquisitive and eager to explore the activities. The learning environment includes activities that support literacy and numeracy; however, it is not rich in text or numbers. Role play areas are set out, but currently do not enhance children's play in all areas of learning. The very good labelling of children's art work around the room promotes children's awareness of letters and numbers. They are developing their sense of time and this has been assisted by the photographic timelines in place for the session and the routine for snack time. Children's artistic achievements are very well promoted and celebrated throughout the nursery; the entrance area displays some stunning self-interpretations of the local woods which equally raises self-esteem and helps to make children feel valued. Staff give children time to finish their pictures throughout the session, enabling them to return in their own time and to choose from creative materials that are not already set out. Good use of environmental print and images helps to teach children about the different food types and to adopt good table manners. Children co-operate with staff when it is time to tidy away resources, though there is a lack of picture labels on storage areas to aid children who are not yet reading. Staff constantly monitor the environment and routines to ensure all children are included and their individual needs are met. In some areas there are few natural or domestic resources to stimulate children's imagination. For example in the baby room most toys are plastic and the treasure basket of heuristic toys is used as a planned activity. Free flow play between indoors and outdoors allows children to choose where they want to play but it is not monitored closely enough to fully ensure that every child gets plenty of fresh air and exercise. The Wider Context Fundraising events to raise money for local charities encourage children to gain an awareness of the needs of others in their community. Older children enjoy singing to residents of a nearby residential home which helps them to develop confidence and be aware of the wider society around them. Children take part in raising funds and completing charity works with large displays showing the targets and what they have achieved. Current charities are BLISS (premature babies) and Build a School for Africa, as well as care boxes being compiled for Romania. These actions help children to be aware of the wider world, the needs of others and begin working together to care for other people. As it is not always possible to take children into the wider community with the setting being in a small village arrangements are made inviting visitors in to the setting such as the police and a local farmer complete with tractor to teach children about community issues. The children also learn about keeping themselves safe through visitors to the setting including the fire officers and the police officers who visit the setting to tell the children stories and to talk to them about safety issues. Partnerships with other professionals are evident, as staff link with the area's special educational needs coordinator. and teachers at the local primary school. Transitional information is passed to schools as children move on.
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