Gibshill Children's Centre Day Care of Children

2 Smillie Street PA15 2NH

Telephone: 01475 715707

Type of inspection: Unannounced

Completed on: 25 October 2019

Service provided by: Service provider number: Council SP2003000212

Service no: CS2003017286 Inspection report

About the service

Gibshill Chidren's Centre is provided by and operates from purpose-built accommodation in Greenock, Inverclyde.

We granted a variation to the service's conditions of registration on 7 May 2019. The service is registered to provide an early learning and childcare service to a maximum of 68 children at any one time. Of those 68 no more than 20 are aged two years to under three years and of whom no more than 48 are aged three years to those not yet attending primary school.

The service's vision, values and aims included:

'G get it right for every child I Involve our local community in all we do B build on prior knowledge and experience S support and nurture individual children and their families H holistically develop children and families I include partner agencies when appropriate L learn and develop new skills independently and from each other L learn in a fun and creative way.'

The Care Inspectorate is committed to improving the health and wellbeing of all children receiving a care service. We want to ensure they have the best start in life, are ready to succeed and live longer, healthier lives. The wellbeing indicators that are essential for children to flourish are safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included.

We check services are meeting the principles of Getting it Right for Every Child (also known as GIRFEC). Set up by the Scottish Government, GIRFEC is a national approach to working in a consistent way with all children and young people. It is underpinned by the principles of prevention and early intervention. The approach helps services focus on what makes a positive difference for children and young people - and what they can do to improve. Getting it Right for Every Child is being woven into all policy, practice, strategy and legislation that affects children, young people and their families.

What people told us

We spoke to nine children who happily chatted about their learning experiences and friendships they had made. Children appeared happy and engaged in a wide range of activities within the playrooms and outdoor area. We saw that children had fun using numeracy and literacy resources creatively to extend their imaginative play relating to their interest in Halloween.

Children's comments included: 'I'm picking raspberries from tree and have been learning about pinecones falling from the fir tree.' 'I found a toy turtle he is a Ninja and I will call him Donatello, actually I'm going to be a Ninja Turtle at Halloween.' 'I am helping my friend to fill up the bucket with water. We are going to use the wheelbarrow to move it in-case we spill it again.' 'This is a witches brew in my cauldron. I have counted four skeletons, 13 witches and one cat. I am a witch.' 'I'm making a joke potion with letters and numbers.'

Inspection report for Gibshill Children's Centre page 2 of 7 Inspection report

We issued 25 care standards questionnaires. Parents/carers completed and returned 11 prior to this inspection. When asked about the overall quality of care their child receives in this service, 11 parents/carers strongly agreed they were happy.

We have quoted a sample of comments received from parents and carers. These included:

'I am extremely happy with the service. My child loves nursery. She skips in the door in the morning and talks fondly of her time in nursery while at home. The staff team are warm, approachable, nurturing and knowledgeable. I can not thank them enough for giving my daughter such a wonderful nursery experience.'

'Happy with the care my child receives at this nursery, staff excellent.'

'My second son who is currently attending was extremely nervous and unsettled when first starting. taffS made his transition into early years care a very supportive and positive experience. I have seen him grow so much in confidence, speech, academically and ormingf positive relationships in less than one year of being there.'

'My child has additional support needs and I feel that the nursery and staff are excellent in providing the extra support my child needs and always discuss what they are doing to keep me well informed.'

'There is no negativity towards the service my child receives at this nursery, the staff are all amazing and very approachable. My child is very happy and has a great relationship with all staff.'

'My daughter is always happy when attending nursery and for a parent this always brings such relief. The nursery staff provide amazing support to both myself and ensuring my child was supported throughout this journey, I would highly recommend the nursery to anyone.'

'I could not be happier with the service and care at the nursery. Both my children feel it is a home from home. Staff are fantastic.'

'I think the staff put a lot of thought and effort into activities for parents and children to take part in together. All of the staff have been very patient with my son during toilet training and offer us all as a family support.'

Self assessment

The service had not been asked to complete a self assessment in advance of the inspection. We looked at the service's improvement plan and quality assurance paperwork. These demonstrated their priorities for improvement and how they were monitoring the overall quality of the provision within the service.

From this inspection we graded this service as:

Quality of care and support 5 - Very Good Quality of environment not assessed Quality of staffing 5 - Very Good Quality of management and leadership not assessed

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What the service does well

Since the last inspection the manager had continued to provide strong leadership for the staff team. She had led the service through recent challenges relating to significant staff changes and pending appointment of new support staff. The manager had given consideration to new and existing staffs' skills, experience and knowledge of children's needs when deploying the new staff teams.

New staff had welcomed the mentoring programme in place to support their induction programme. Staff had identified leadership olesr and were motivated to further develop their skills and knowledge to support their continuous professional development and experiences provided to children and families. Parents commented positively on the range of family learning initiatives and fundraising events available. For example, lending library and the planned 'beat the goal keeper' fundraiser.

Children had developed close relationships with the more established staff and were getting to know the newer staff. We saw that all staff were responsive and were becoming attuned to children's needs. As a result young children benefitted from warm, caring engagement. Staff respected children's privacy and dignity when meeting their personal care and support needs.

Key staff welcomed children and families individually at each session. Staff were very respectful, they valued information received from parents and were sensitive to their needs and preferences. We noted that this approach supported the continuity of care and support provided to each child and family. Parents spoken with praised the high level of care and support their child and family received from the responsive and sensitive staff and management team.

Children who may need additional input were very well supported. Staff worked as part of a multidisciplinary team and had effectively worked with parents and other professionals, when needed to set out and tailor the planned care and support, in line with GIRFEC health and wellbeing plans. The manager agreed to put a system in place to signpost new staff to children's current needs.

Staff provided very creative and imaginative experiences that allowed children to develop skills of curiosity, inquiry and creativity during the course of their play. Children therefore had very good opportunities to lead and extend their interests using a wide variety of natural, sensory and loose parts play materials. As Halloween was approaching we saw that staff had effectively used imaginative play experiences to extend children's vocabulary, early numeracy and literacy skills. We saw children had great fun dressing up, making potions and experimenting with water.

We looked at the administration and storage of medication and found that effective systems were in place to ensure the health and safety needs of children. Staff received first aid training and recorded accident and incident reports which were shared with parents at collection times. Staff also recorded children's temperatures and monitored children who may sleep during the session.

Staff had a sound understanding of how to protect and safeguard children. A robust child protection policy and procedure was in place which informed and supported staff in their roles. Staff attended regular child protection training which kept them up-to-date with current best practice and refreshed their knowledge and understanding of child protection.

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What the service could do better

We observed children's lunch time experience and shared our findings with the manager and depute. Following discussion the manager agreed to continue to review the flow of children's lunch time experiences to meet the developmental stages, needs and preferences of each child. We signposted the manager to the new Health and Social Care Standards and Setting the Table best practice guidance as part of their assessment.

We looked at accident reports and discussed providing staff and parent's guidance on monitoring the wellbeing of children following a head bump, giving clear guidance on signs of concussion and timescales for action. To support improvement we signposted the manager to https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/minor-head-injury/

Requirements Number of requirements: 0

Recommendations Number of recommendations: 0

Complaints

There have been no complaints upheld since the last inspection. Details of any older upheld complaints are published at www.careinspectorate.com.

What the service has done to meet any requirements we made at or since the last inspection

Previous requirements

There are no outstanding requirements.

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What the service has done to meet any recommendations we made at or since the last inspection

Previous recommendations

Recommendation 1

Gibshill Children's Centre should make safe the wooden bridge and the decked areas in their outdoor play space.

National Care Standards, early education and childcare up to the age of 16 - Standard 2: A Safe environment.

This recommendation was made on 13 November 2017.

Action taken on previous recommendation This recommendation is no longer relevant as the outside area is in the process of being refurbished.

Inspection and grading history

Date Type Gradings 26 Oct 2017 Unannounced Care and support 5 - Very good Environment 5 - Very good Staffing Not assessed Management and leadership Not assessed

20 Nov 2015 Unannounced Care and support 5 - Very good Environment 5 - Very good Staffing 5 - Very good Management and leadership 5 - Very good

21 Nov 2013 Unannounced Care and support 4 - Good Environment 5 - Very good Staffing 5 - Very good Management and leadership 5 - Very good

26 Nov 2010 Unannounced Care and support 5 - Very good Environment 5 - Very good Staffing 4 - Good Management and leadership 4 - Good

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To find out more

This inspection report is published by the Care Inspectorate. You can download this report and others from our website.

Care services in cannot operate unless they are registered with the Care Inspectorate. We inspect, award grades and help services to improve. We also investigate complaints about care services and can take action when things aren't good enough.

Please get in touch with us if you would like more information or have any concerns about a care service.

You can also read more about our work online at www.careinspectorate.com

Contact us

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Other languages and formats

This report is available in other languages and formats on request.

Tha am foillseachadh seo ri fhaighinn ann an cruthannan is cànain eile ma nithear iarrtas.

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