New Stevenston Primary Nursery Class Day Care of Children Coronation Road East New Stevenston Motherwell ML1 4HX Telephone: 01698 352530 Type of inspection: Unannounced Inspection completed on: 26 October 2016 Service provided by: Service provider number: North Lanarkshire Council SP2003000237 Care service number: CS2003015400 Inspection report About the service This service registered with the Care Inspectorate on 1 April 2011. The service is registered as a nursery to care for a maximum of 60 children aged from three years to those not attending primary school. It is available Monday to Friday between 8.30am and 4.30pm, with the majority of children attending either morning or afternoon sessions. Staff provide the service flexibly, and some children attend full days or extended days over lunch time. The service is provided from New Stevenston Primary School, and the head teacher of the school is the named manager and is actively involved with the nursery on a daily basis. A nursery teacher and early years practitioners plan care and support for children on a day-to-day basis. The service is provided by North Lanarkshire Council. The service is provided from one large playroom which has toilets, wash hand basins, a small kitchen, and direct access to outdoors. Their aims and objectives include, "To encourage the emotional, social, physical and intellectual development of each child", and "To promote a genuine partnership with parents and the community." We check services are meeting the principles of Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC), Scotland's national approach to improving outcomes and wellbeing for children by offering the right help at the right time from the right people. It supports them and their parent(s) to work with services that can help them. There are eight wellbeing indicators at the heart of GIRFEC: safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible, and included, also known as the SHANARRI wellbeing indicators. What people told us We spoke with four parents/carers during our inspection and received eleven care standards questionnaires before the inspection. Seven questionnaires contained additional comments about the service. The vast majority of feedback was very positive. Parents/carers were very happy with the skills of staff, and the quality of care and support for their child. They felt included in any decisions made, and they were confident that their child was happy at nursery and that their child's development was being supported appropriately. Comments from parents/carers included: "I'm very happy with the nursery. There was an incident that I raised with the head teacher and nursery staff and I was very happy with the outcome. I'm happy that there are opportunities for me to be involved through the Forest Fun, parent committee, and parent workshops." "I would recommend anyone to send their child here. My children were prepared for school when they left. It's tremendous. The relationships between staff and parents are excellent. It's made so easy. It's great to see my child's smiling face when I collect him. As a family we are thoroughly impressed by the care and experiences our children receive within the nursery." "All I know is that my child loves it here. Staff are really good to her. They have homework which is great and really lets you see what's happening at nursery. No pressure to complete it which is good. There's a variety of fun. Forest Fun, Three Reads, ABC Music. The Growing Together Learning Forever course for parents is great and really makes you think about the conversations you have with your child during everyday tasks." "My daughter loves coming to nursery and I can see her making progress within all areas of her development daily. I am really happy with the nursery and all the staff and the service I am provided with." "I cannot fault the care and education my child receives at this nursery. The staff, environment and resources are all great. I am very happy and so is my child." "The nursery staff are very pleasant and helpful. They treat children and parents/carers with respect." "Excellent nursery. All staff are helpful and welcoming." "We have only positive comments about the nursery. The staff are fantastic, they are friendly, professional and extremely knowledgeable. The nursery offers a wide variety of activities for our child. We are very happy with Inspection report for New Stevenston Primary Nursery Class page 2 of 6 Inspection report our child's progress and believe it is 100% due to the encouragement and care she receives in such a first class learning environment." One parent wrote: "I think that the nursery has helped to develop my child socially and in aspects of learning. However, I don't feel that enough feedback is given on a regular basis." This parent also wrote that, as a working parent, there were times when they had not been given enough notice to attend events in the nursery. Overall, they remained happy with the nursery and we discussed these points with the head teacher and staff during our inspection. We spoke to several children over the two days of our inspection. We saw that children were confident and happy at nursery, and actively engaged with the wide variety of resources and activities available. Children enjoyed playing indoors and outdoors, and visiting the nearby forest area for "Forest Fun" activities. Outdoors, we saw children planning complicated imaginative play, "painting" the playhouse with water and soap, building structures, and using the mud kitchen. Indoors, children were also busy, making a skeleton, building train tracks, using sand and water, and working with the Smartboard. Children were independent during snacks, using the toilets, and getting dressed to go outdoors. They were interested in our inspection process and talked to us about what they enjoyed at nursery. Children said, "Look we painted the house!", "I like coming to nursery because I'm big but I can't come myself because I'm still little", "I like coming for snack" and "I have lots of friends here (pointing and naming children around the nursery". A children's committee had also been established and we saw that this worked very well. Children told us, "We're planning the Halloween Party". Self assessment The Care Inspectorate received a fully completed self-assessment from the manager. The manager identified what the service did well and gave examples of how they had improved since the last inspection, especially around parent participation. They also talked to us about how these improvements had impacted on the quality of care they could provide and how the views of parents had influenced plans orf development. From this inspection we graded this service as: Quality of care and support 5 - Very Good Quality of environment not assessed Quality of staffing 6 - Excellent Quality of management and leadership not assessed What the service does well Communication in the service was excellent. Staff had developed systems to ensure that information was shared in the service and with external agencies when they were involved. Staff were committed to their work, and took time to study and attend training ensuring they could meet the needs of all children and keeping abreast of changing guidance and current thinking. We talked to staff about the impact their training had on their practice and found that peer support was a major strength in the nursery. One member of staff was completing a BA Childhood Studies and all staff told us her feedback about this helped motivate them. Other staff talked about VERP (Video Enhanced Reflective Practice) training, the use of PAThs (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies) and Solihull (supports staff to work with children and families) and how this had impacted positively on their practice. Inspection report for New Stevenston Primary Nursery Class page 3 of 6 Inspection report Staff had put in place very good tracking systems to help them identify any children who would benefit from additional support or challenges. The staff team was reflective and continually considered how they could improve their practice. They were supported very well by management who provided designated times throughout the week for staff to focus on their professional learning and development. This had resulted in a professional staff team who worked to an excellent level. Staff were responsive and children's views and interests were firmly embedded in planning. Staff were skilled in how they used questioning with children, and we saw some excellent interactions taking place. As a result, the ethos in the playroom and outdoors was respectful and calm. Staff had a firm understanding of the SHANARRI indicators, and included these when planning care and support for children. They had developed very good relationships with parents/carers, and involved them in "come and play days", parent workshops, Forest Fun, parent committee, and other events to celebrate children's achievements. Staff were confident, and had been given leadership or "champion" roles to motivate and further develop their skills. Overall, we found that the staff team was professional, committed to their own learning and to providing a nurturing and safe service for children. As a result, children were active learners, happy, becoming independent, and were engaged with activities. What the service could do better We discussed how children's personal plans could be better organised. Staff had identified that they would review the layout of these to ensure easy access to