Pentwyn House, Pentwyn Lane, Bettws, Newport, South Wales NP20 7AE

Chuckles Nursery Newport 8th July 2017 Pentwyn House, Pentwyn Lane, Bettws, Newport, South Wales NP20 7AE Self evaluation to support Self Assessment of Service Statement (SASS) Part two Quality of Care Review

Self evaluation is important in helping to consider how best to create, maintain, and improve our service so that it:  meets the highest standards of safe, quality childcare and play  offers the best experience for children  contributes to children’s well-being outcomes.

Our Quality of Care Review also fulfils our legal duty under regulation16 of the Child Minding and Day Care (Wales) Regulations 2010. Part A: Service details and views of those who use the service This section must record: the views of the children who attend your service and those of their parents or carersthe views of other professionals who may work with you, such as local authority advisers/ development workers for Flying Start or Foundation phase education, Family Information Services health professionals; children’s centre staff and any other childcare provision details of any quality assurance scheme you participate in. Please include examples of the ways in which you seek views, numbers involved, a summary of the responses, and any action you have taken to improve as a result of those views.

Methods of collecting views We collect our views by way of children questionnaires, parent questions and reviews and discussing ideas with our LEA Link Teacher(Estyn). All children questionnaire results and workings are contained within a book for reference.

Menus -As we were about to change the menu the children ready for the summer, we asked the children what their favourite food was. We did it on a one to one basis so they wouldn’t all answer the same thing. They answered a variety of different foods sausages being the most popular. We then asked them what they disliked. Their answers were mainly snack foods such as tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, cabbage. As these are all healthy foods we are not going to take these out of the menu. We worked with the cook to use different methods of using these foods. They were cut up into different shapes at snack time and blended them more into the dinner so you couldn’t really taste them. We then sat down and talked to the children and explained why we have to eat our healthy fruit and veg- to make us big and strong to ride the bikes outside etc. Finally we asked the children what else they would like on the menu. The answers they given was food that are already on the menu- such as pasta and cheese, chicken, toast etc. When the new summer menu was created, we made sure all these foods were still included into our menu.

Party theme -We asked the pre-school children what they would like to dress up as for the graduation party and what they would like the theme to be. We made a box with all the children’s names and a list of different themes to dress up as in case the children couldn’t think. We asked them one by one so each child couldn’t copy. The majority of the children said they wanted to dress up as princesses and princes with 5 children saying superheroes. We decided to not bother having a theme this year as the staff members had mascot costumes and the children all dressed up as fancy dress of their choice. By doing this it also didn’t make parents feel they had to go out and buy new costumes

Block Area – The block area was not used by some children and the ones that did appeared to be getting into arguments. Pictures were put up around block play area to give children ideas about what they can build after team members observed some children just making piles with the blocks and not really being sure what to do.

of 13 Also there were children who were not accessing the area at all and when asked why they said “it’s too loud and the blocks fall over on me.” A group of boys had developed an interest in building very tall towers during the summer term, so we looked at the outside block area and made this bigger area and encouraged the boys to build bigger structures outside we found after this both areas were being used a lot more purposefully and by more children

Patio Area - After talking to the children about what they would like to play with in the patio areas the pre-school team designed with the help of the children a new small world area – it is now an area that is more productive and is used more often by the children

Nursery Rules- As part of the planning for the first two weeks of term our pre-school focussed on our nursery rules as well as respecting each other and the environment and also learning routines – they introduced a tidy up song to let the children know the session was coming to an end and also developed a new reward system using the children’s photos, which they added to the view panel for everyone to see and to show they had done well at following our nursery rules. This helped new children to settle quickly and established a very good routine early on that children felt secure in, we allowed older children to help the new ones with jobs such as putting on coats and showing them where resources go to give them a sense of independence and also to stop them from becoming bored as some were already familiar with the routines and rules. We also visual timetables to show children how the routines look and what we mean by tidy up in each area.

Table top activities - We made a chart and asked the children in each group what things they would like out on the tables in the morning. We started by asking the children what things they would like to play with and then wrote down anything else they had said. After asking each child we then made a new morning table rota based on what the children like to play with most in the mornings. They didn’t choose popoids, stickle bricks or duplo but instead they wanted more small world activities. They appear to be far more settled now as they are more interested.

Make Chuckles Better – We asked the children what were good things about Chuckles? and what can we do as a nursery to make Chuckles better? Their answers were: • More bikes on bike track – there were 10 bikes but we bought some scooters which the children love as more seem to have a scooter at home rather than a bike. • More outside adventures – checked the monthly plan and told the team to ensure all outside areas were being used on a regular basis and in an interesting way – see boat song on our facebook page • More little cars to play with which we bought and made sure there is a car drawer in each ages room.

Pancake Day - We asked the children what they would like to put on their pancakes on Pancake Day. The younger children (toddlers) mostly commented with just pancakes but the older ones knew exactly what they wanted on them. – Chocolate sauce, strawberry sauce and Honey. As it was a special occasion we bought the sauces

of 13 With the babies and younger toddlers, our “questionnaires” are really based on observations, seeing what they like and what they don’t and monitoring noise levels which indicate how absorbed they are in their activities. The team do this all the time and their planning and rooms are changed accordingly. Due to the increase in numbers, we needed to make the groups smaller which meant we needed to use more rooms. As it was time to start the transition up to preschool we decide to share the cwtch with preschool but with specific activities not to disrupt pre school activities. Worked very well Again as our numbers increased in the toddler group the puzzle room became very busy, so we moved the messy activities into another room and the room became less cluttered. We also added a cover over the decking area so that outside area could be used more. Toddler Sleeptime - We could see that some of the children were finding it difficult to settle in the area we have always used for sleeping due to the increased numbers and noise within these areas. After discussions with the toddler team we decided that it would be better to use one of the upstairs rooms that is currently only used for holiday club. We set the area up and went over the procedure for taking children up the stairs with the team to ensure the children’s safety, added visual cues to stair areas to remind them that the younger children need to crawl and did a fire risk assessment and procedure. The toddler team then made sure a member of staff was allocated each day to complete work upstairs during sleep time so that the children were supervised – we have found the children are settling much quicker and also sleeping for longer and this gives an hour and a half uninterrupted work time to the toddler team. We tendered successfully to become a Non Maintained Setting(NMS) and provide Foundation Phase education. That means we are monitored by a Local Education Advisor. When here we ask for advice on plans that we would like to implement. Reports are written by that Teacher after every visit and contribute towards our Estyn Evaluation. This year we are listed as one of the top ten Nurseries in Wales on Daynurseries.co.uk based on the reviews from our parents, past and present. The comments were overwhelming and certainly confirmed to the team they are doing a great job from a parents perspective too.

We have tried many ways to get parent feedback over the years which has proved difficult as we have daily contact with the team and therefore we are constantly talking with them and we feel they tire of questionnaires

We now have a question of the month which although is listed in our monthly newsletter, it is also written on the notice board along with emoji’s and they have to post an appropriate emoji to identify how they feel about the question. This has worked the best for us.

Some of the children were getting a little cranky towards the end of the day and it seemed that many more were here until 6pm instead of the usual 5pm. One of our team members whose own child attends, suggested we introduce a snack time at 5pm. It’s simply a healthy homemade snack with their drink and the children really enjoy this and it certainly has made a difference. They have oat cookies with various fruit flavours, apple energy bites and banana bread all of which have been a big hit – even so far as

of 13 when some children’s parents arrive early they are promptly told – “I’m not going yet I haven’t had snack!” so we’ve even had some parents joining us for snack too

We have visited Monnow infants as part of transition arrangements we spoke to teachers and passed over information for the children going over to them in September. As we had two children transitioning with additional needs this was extremely useful to the new teachers as we were able to discuss strategies we had previously tried but it was also extremely beneficial to the children as we were able to give them more detailed information that would help them to feel more settled in the new setting such as triggers that were likely to cause upset and also favourite activities and details of how we dealt with the children when upset/aggressive. As chair of the EYDCP and representative of the Non Maintained settings, the Registered Person maintains tight contacts with the Family Information Service and has established a Facebook page to encourage conversation about the new Childcare Offer currently being piloted. Our team feedback is really how their planning looks, how the rooms are decorated, what hours they are contracted for and the fact that our sickness rate barely exists. They all know they are free to voice their opinions not just with team members but with team leaders, managers and owners. Our work banter is healthy and happy. If they leave it is to further career paths they cannot do from here but has been by using the training they have achieved here. Since 2003 we have maintained Investors in People Accreditation. However this year we decided not to renew as not only has it been changing, now the ability to achieve bronze, silver and gold depends initially on your ability to pay. To pay out a thousand pound to only to be able to achieve a bronze, I felt wouldn’t be good for team morale and I would much prefer to put the money into the Nursery. We do however as stated further into the report take part in many accredited schemes and maintain the Wales PPA Quality For All scheme and this year achieve Highly Commended

Part B: The quality and standard of provision This part covers our service evaluation

1. Well-being This is about the progress different groups of children are making, taking into account their age, development and needs. It is about how your service is contributing to children’s well-being, helping them to have a voice, develop their skills and become independent and confident.

Service Evaluation We monitor and evaluate all our groups daily, this is essential particularly in the younger age groups as their needs change weekly, therefore routines and staff need to be adaptable. From monitoring our baby areas, we could see that staff on training placements had gaps in their knowledge of how to care for babies since the introduction of the new QCF. The RP devised a training procedure to address this which included the basics of baby care and recognising stages of development. We introduced prompters on care as part of a display in our baby room showing different stages of development in this age range, this meant team members could Page 5 of 13 easily see what the needs were for every individual child. Care plan summaries were introduced into the baby room to let everyone know how our babies should be cared for at a quick glance. They include information such as comforters, ways of going to sleep, favourite toys/activities, likes and dislikes, these forms are then passed to the toddler groups and the information put onto their “All about me forms” which are used within the toddler and pre-school groups to share important information. We could see the success of these changes after an influx of new babies – they all settled in quickly as team members were confident in recognising and meeting their needs immediately. Ensuring children are developing into confident, independent learners is an integral part of our daily routines with team members ensuring children have opportunities to develop a wide range of skills throughout the day. Observations show that children are happy to do familiar things for themselves such as putting aprons on at mealtimes and show the confidence to “have a go” when faced with new things. We value the importance of consistency in the delivery of what each team member does as we know children need this to help them feel safe and therefore to retain control. Almost half of our team work part time as allows a better work/life balance for most after returning to work having had children themselves. Communication in the written form helps us to ensure they all work the same way to ensure a consistent approach for the children and weekly meetings to discuss their groups mean that any issues are identified and acted upon quickly. Having a high number of part time staff also means that we can cover holidays and training days easily, without having to use agency staff that the children are not familiar with. We can see we are succeeding in what we are doing as children are extremely settled and walk around the nursery as if they are at home. Many parents take advantage of our open-door policy and come into our rooms at the end of the day to collect their children and can see them happy and playing. Prospective parents also mention it as they look around, with many writing on feedback forms the reasons for choosing us are that is “homely” and “welcoming”

Our priorities for improvement We have held parent craft sessions. Look at doing healthy eating sessions with them as well. See if we can change our website to have a parenting section where we can put information on things like eating healthily, the importance of boundaries, how to encourage reading, activities for the home and out in the park etc

2. Care and development This is about how responsive practitioners are in meeting children’s needs – how they help children feel emotionally secure and ensuring children are physically, mentally and emotionally healthy. It is also about ensuring that children are being developed and build relationships with other children, become self-aware, confident and are achieving good well-being.

Service Evaluation We continue to enrol on health and wellbeing schemes that assess us and our reports verify that we do well.

of 13 Healthy Pre-School Award (HPA) - passed Wellbeing and Mental health and Nutrition and Oral Health and Physical Activity/Active play sections which shows how well we promote the health and wellbeing of both our children and team. One result was to produce a Healthy Teeth Booklet explaining the benefits of tooth brushing which was given out to parents when asking them for toothbrushes for their children.

Managing behaviour policies placed in all rooms so visible at all times as it can be easy once your group has settled to forget these things. We work with choices and consequences which we believe gives the child control over his/her decision.

PiC attended Level 2 Safeguarding training and has also attended Train the Trainer training. She put in place CP flow charts and posters for accidental and non-accidental injuries that are displayed throughout nursery. A training questionnaire for safeguarding was put in place for team members. The training raised that nursery workers work long hours which makes them tired and less engaged with children towards end of day – our team work shorter hours compared to most nurseries – this has an impact of their own wellbeing as well as their ability to be alert and interested in the children for the whole of their day

New forms for when children have specific illnesses so all the team know how to treat that specific child. This was as a result of two specific children that have potential life threatening illness. We agreed the treatment plan in the event of an incident with the parent and then made sure all the team were aware and confident in what to do.

Signs were added to hallway and bathroom areas to remind staff that tablets were not allowed in bathroom areas and also to remind parent that mobile phones were not permitted to be used within the nursery

We are a non maintained setting therefore registered to deliver Foundation Phase Education and monitored regularly by the LEA Link Teacher advisor. We role out the methods used here to the other groups as well which allows us to at times address issues in the toddler group rather than waiting for the child to enter pre school. All settings tendered for this position in 2016 and we were successful with one of if not the highest score at 86.13% Attended Elklan training which help identify speech and language issues and what strategies to put in place. Completed ECERS training which assesses the amount and age appropriateness of equipment in each room. One of the results was to put in place new story area for toddlers which was cosier and had soft toys for cuddles. Checklists for each room are completed monthly by team members and equipment purchased as needed. The SEN is our PiC and she works closely with parents to access the support their child requires

Our priorities for improvement We are due to receive an Early Years Grant and we will be using this money to enhance our outside Reading Areas.

Recently we made bags to build our own storysacks. The idea is to turn the reading a book experience into a storytelling experience. We will now also be preparing scripts for new team members to follow and learn this technique Page 7 of 13 Look at the possibility of using the Ouchy app for the child’s accident form.

Continue to take up on training opportunites that become available and schemes that require outside agencies to look at our practises

3. Environment This section is how you ensure that the physical environment you provide is of good quality and meets the needs of the children using your service.

Service Evaluation Using our reminder tool created in house by RP (Keep Performance at its Best – KPB) that is still a working document - all risk assessments and health and safety documents are updated when required. The document lists everything that is required to be done for the Nursery and the business. This is a good tool for prospective leaders to see to understand what is required. This tool is then broken down into monthly duties. We also use Microsoft Outlook as a reminder tool.

A training matrix was added to our accident drill policy which now ensures all team members staff carry out each scenario within a year which keeps first aid procedures fresh.

Attended Infection Control training. As a result changed the way we stored soiled clothes. We agreed to be inspected against this in May 15. Overall the feedback was excellent and we had one recommendation which was to change the way we heat bottles which was implemented immediately.

Cleaning is incorporated into daily routines and checklists ensure all team members are aware of what needs to be done which are signed off when completed.

Our rooms are constantly being updated. When the preschool planning changes, it may require that the room needs to be adjusted. When the babies age, the group dynamics change and then the baby/toddler rooms change to accommodate those changes.

Outside is constantly being developed: On the Patio Area we built a covered area built so that children can do a wider range of activities in all weathers and wooden furniture, small world areas introduced to have all weather activities available. A den area created in the sensory garden providing a small quiet area for children to go and sit and talk. We developed the tree area by the cabin for storytelling and activities as it is so cool in summer and well sheltered from the rain too.

of 13 Annual Decoration Planner for the Nursery has been followed for years, which ensures that over the space of a year all areas of the Nursery are addressed whether it be just for painting or for new equipment. This ensures that the building and rooms always look well maintained. This list is also updated each year to include projects that we intend to cover as part of the schedule

Other items covered: New buggy shelter created to stop parents leaving them in the porch area. Recycle bin area moved closer to gate and labelled to encourage recycling New outside signs done on UPVC as wood spoiled too quickly Mud Kitchen area levelled off and ground covered with artificial grass Herb garden into tyres and tyres painted to give the garden colour with hungry caterpillar made from tyres Put weed cover sheets under tyres and artificial grass on top, around bike track to minimise weed growth New water heaters put into bathroom areas ready for when we change our heating system to individual electric wall heaters. Artificial grass added to decking area as it was slippery when wet.

Our priorities for improvement Upstairs First Floor Rooms – to make a decision on its purpose. It was preschool until we moved everything downstairs and then it was empty unless used by Holiday Club. Then we tried using one of the rooms for toddler sleeping which works really well. Now we are in talk with Muthiad Meithrin about introducing Welsh Sessional Care which may mean they will need use of one of the rooms. So for the time being but whatever the decision we need to establish a purpose instead of it simply being an overflow room. Downstairs childrens toilets is to be revamped. We bought a new baby changing station but it changed the dynamics of the room. We are now however making plans to move the sinks. We also installed stable doors onto the childrens cubicles. However we are unsure about these as the children do not like them and push them open and we do not agree with them as we feel we need proper access to them due to their age. We will be seeking advice on this from CSSIW on their next visit to see if we can remove one of them and give the children the choice. To put new electrical heaters into the rooms so each room can be heated individually.

4. Leadership and management

Service Evaluation

The RP believes in supporting all members of the team in personal and professional development. Chuckles has been assessed against the Investors In People standard since 2003 only withdrawing this year due to the way they have changed it.

of 13 We have a training flowchart which shows team members the paths they can follow in their career should they chose so. 25% of the team are qualified to Level 5.

Appraisals are carried out every year and reviewed 6 monthly and have changed many times over the years to help us to get relevant responses from the team. Monthly supervision meetings ensure team development is continually reviewed. We also give all team members Treasure Maps so that we can find more out about what team members want to achieve in their professional and personal lives. This will help us to understand the needs of team members better and uncovers skills they may not generally have mentioned. Eg one person wanted to learn sign language, we facilitated that and now it is rolled out through the Nursery We believe our low staff turnover proves we do support the team as they only leave to progress in other areas or maybe if after having a child they decide not to return to work.

April 17 the Nursery was shortlisted to the last 4 in the National Day Nurseries awards in the Investing in People Category.

All Team Training is entered into a Training Matrix so we can ensure mandatory training is arranged before it runs out.

We have completed Small Workplace Award and achieved our Bronze and Silver accreditation.

Our goal is to empower every member of the team to make decisions. They have a “Way Forward” document where they list the projects they want to address for the coming year and this is updated at each managers meeting. Monthly each group creates their own routines and activities. Everything that happens in their room is down to them. They plan and submit their plans to the Manager which goes to the Managers meeting to ensure everything they want to do is within the guidelines.

Made a Team achievement board for front porch to congratulate the team and make parents aware of the good work that goes on behind the scenes. We do hold team meetings but try to make them about bonding rather than further learning as it is important the team work well together.

CSSIW Inspection Framework created into a word document and made into a check sheet done for new Managers to see what they should be looking for in their new roles. The Nursery is checked against this checklist every 3 months.

New training booklets for Storytime, Circle time, messy play created for new team members as this is where their current training within the QCF falls short in terms of showing them, what to do. The placements from college found these very useful.

We attend meetings with outside agencies, network meetings and work where possible with other nurseries

Our priorities for improvement

of 13 To develop an excel document for the Child Register and Team Rota to ensure that we have a check point to show we are also in ratio. So far it has been down to the PiC to prepare the rota based on the register and to make decisions on whether we can accept requests from parents for extra days. This document will mean that anyone in the managerial position will be able to prepare a rota and make any necessary changes.

RP to complete Assessor training with a view to maybe creating a more formulised in house training scheme although much discussion will be needed on this. However in the meantime, it’s a technique that can be transferred to Managers when carrying out in house training.

Achieve Gold Small Workplace Award

Put together a Manager training package to support the transition from Practitioner to leader. We have procedures but we need to formalize it.

Anything else that wouldn’t fit into the word count above  Put cough signs up around the building at child height and outside for parents to teach children and adults to cough onto their sleeve or a tissue and then bin the tissue to prevent the spreading of germs – the children opted for their sleeves mainly and are seen to do this.

Re-established the link with Willowbrook which is a home for elderly on the estate. Visits take place each month. They do colouring, craft activities, singing and signing (Makkaton) activities. The children are very excited before each visit and love telling parents all about it afterwards “We did colouring with the nannies and granddad’s!” (as the residents are now referred to as). After a visit on St David’s Day where they made the ladies daffodils and one women commented saying how she still had her flower on her shelf from last year. We are now finding the children are getting more and more confident going down and talking to everyone by themselves and the nannies all love having a cuddle before they leave.

Story Sacks were created by the team to make storytime more enjoyable especially for the toddlers. It’s important for the children to regard books as fun and enjoyable not a boring chore. This does work as often we see a toddler sitting in an otherwise busy room leafing through a book.

We are extremely interested in making the introduction of Welsh a harmonious transition. We developed a plan for the year which would ensure that by the end of the year a particular pattern of words and phrases would be learnt and this was linked to the Welsh baseline. These words are displayed in and around and outside the Nursery with phonetics. The front noticeboard also has a talking point which when pressed will say the word of the month. This is to get the children to involve the parents. A team member Page 11 of 13 and child also say the word along with the sign (makkaton) on a facebook video each month. We can see that the Welsh vocab is already starting to become more frequently used by children and staff and also both are more confident with spoken Welsh.

We have a few different languages here but none where the parents want their own language spoke. When they start we do ask parents for a few words to use to help them settle in. In the past we have had a child with Down Syndrome and Autism and we have found using sign language has helped those children settle with us. We have also created sign sheets for parents if they want to learn.

Working with agencies The RP represents Newport Non Maintained settings on the Newport Early Years Partnership as group that she also chairs. She is also a trustee for the Wales PPA RP or PiC attend the Wales PPA Regional Forum events each term. The PiC attends NDNA Regional Forum events and is soon to be trustee again for Clybiau Plant Cymru All members of the team attend EYE Meetings, it just depends what the subject they are covering is. Last year we were involved in the organisation and running of WalesPPA welsh culture event. We created a role play area based on the castles and hill of Wales. It was used by all of the children that attended the event. Ran a crèche for 6 weeks (through the summer holidays) for Communities 1st who were running a course for parents on Bettws about boosting confidence in how to return to the workplace. The ages of the children were varied so although it was referred to as a crèche the children joined the relevant age groups within the Nursery. The children and parents settled in very quickly.

Involved in Person Centred Planning ( PCP) pilot to improve information gathering for children - As a result we use All about Me forms to gather information on what is important to the child eg “what do I like”

Pre-school parent meetings are regularly held to discuss children’s progress. This year we even held to appointments at 7:30am as it was the only way the parent could fit it in. All parents who attended completed questionnaires and said the sessions gave them the time to get any information they required.

We have held Parent crafts sessions held for Easter and Christmas crafts which the parents and children thoroughly enjoyed and even working parents made the effort to come in which we appreciated can be difficult to arrange with their employers

One of the college students was dyslexic, she was able to manage but needed a digital watch as she couldn’t tell the time from a clock now being used to using the phone for the time

Following first aid training we added into our procedures that pregnant women shouldn’t go into recovery position and we purchased a Burn kit specifically for the kitchen

of 13 Changes made: Developed a plan to give team members more time to plan better quality activities and ensure the children are covering a wide range of topics each year. It was to teach them time management and this is working as they are no longer rushing when deadlines are imminent.

Writing area moved into pre-school main room so children are more focussed when doing writing activities and team members can also provide help when needed

Morning and evening routine updated as with opening times changing and new children our current routine needs adapting before everyone starts doing things differently. New signs made for tables and cards for construction boxes to show children things they can build in Lego/blocks etc. and photos of children rolling/cutting etc. in Playdough area so they can learn how to do independently as we know many children will not have seen these activities before.

New more engaging childrens birthday board made and displayed at their height at the entrance with their face on.

Made shiny mobiles in storytelling area to keep cats away and it works well, although it doesn’t deter the squirrels but the children do that.

Added how and where to park (and why)into main and state brochure as the parents despite having ample car park spaces insist on parking right at the front door causing chaos at peak times and potentially an accident.

Added to the monthly checklist to look into the quality of writing and what is being written in diaries New carpark and porch lights added to ensure whole of carpark and entrance is lit up for parents dropping off and collecting the children

That’s a summary of our last 12 months and if you know us well you will know the next 12 months will be just as eventful. Whatever we do, we will fight to ensure every child here has a childhood and every day is an adventure.