Report on the Inspection of St

/ Providing Inspection Services for
Department of Education
Department for Employment and Learning
Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure
Inspection of St Joseph’s Playgroup
Carryduff, Co Down
(DE Number: 4AB-0471)
A Report by the Education and Training Inspectorate
March 2003

INTRODUCTION

1.St Joseph’s Playgroup is a pre-school centre under voluntary management. At the time of the inspection, a total of 29 children attended the centre; 20 were in their pre-school year.

2.The inspection is part of a programme to ensure that appropriate standards of education are provided in centres receiving funding as part of the Government’s expansion of pre-school education. Ten of the centre’s pre-school places are funded through the expansion programme.

3.The inspection provided opportunities for the parents to express their views about the centre. The vast majority of those who responded were satisfied or very satisfied with nearly all aspects of the centre’s provision. Some parents included comments praising the work of the staff. The few issues raised by the parents have been shared with the staff and are addressed in the relevant sections of the report.

The Quality of the Educational Provision

4.There is a caring atmosphere in the centre. Relationships between the staff and the children are good. The children are settled and well behaved; they relate well to one another and some firm friendships are developing. The staff treat the children with care and respect; they provide a secure and supportive environment which helps the children grow in confidence and independence. The environment is enhanced by displays of the children’s art work, an interest table and photographs of the children at play. During the inspection, the photographs generated much interest and discussion among the children.

5.There are friendly relationships with the parents. At the beginning and end of the session there are opportunities for them to share informally with the staff information about the children. Recently, the parents received copies of the centre’s policies. The staff are developing the programme of liaison with the parents and have appropriate plans to extend further the existing links.

6.The management committee has helped the staff to draw up a detailed policy on child protection. All the staff need a clearer understanding of the procedures for reporting matters of concern. The centre should ensure that parents are informed fully about the centre’s policy and procedures.

7.There is evidence that the staff have made progress in planning the educational programme. Themes and topics are used to introduce a variety of interesting activities and learning experiences. As the staff continue to develop the planning, they need to ensure that more detailed reference is made to the learning which they intend to promote. More emphasis should be given within the planning to meeting the children’s differing needs and to progression in the use of resources over the year.

8.The daily timetable makes good use of all the available time for learning. The session is well organised to provide a good balance of free play and activities organised by the staff. Routines are introduced informally and operate efficiently. The snack time is used well to develop the children’s social and conversational skills and to encourage independence. Suitable time is given to music and story sessions.

9.The staff are successful in promoting settled play and engage the children in some valuable discussion about their activities. At times, however, they miss opportunities to develop the children’s thinking and language. The staff need to develop further their awareness of the learning inherent in the activities in order to promote fully the children’s development.

10.There is a satisfactory range of activities which provide opportunities for learning in all areas of the pre-school curriculum. The points which follow illustrate specific aspects of the programme.

• The centre’s programme promotes effectively the children’s personal, social and emotional development. The children’s play is settled; some show sustained interest and concentration in their chosen activities. The vast majority of the children share materials agreeably and take account of the ideas and wishes of others.

• The children’s abilities to control small tools such as scissors and pencils are developed effectively. There are weekly opportunities for physical play in the hall. The staff have appropriately identified this as an area for further development.

• The children are provided with a range of creative materials which encourage them to explore and make choices, and to express their own ideas. The children are developing a wide repertoire of songs and rhymes which they clearly enjoy. Recently the staff have begun to share the words of songs and rhymes with the parents in order to help them support the children’s learning at home.

• During the session, the attractive book area is used for reading stories to small groups at the children’s request. The children listen attentively and join in appropriately during the story session involving the whole group. The staff should do more to foster an interest in books by incorporating them into aspects of play. The children are introduced to text incidentally through annotations on their work and by the appropriate use of their names at snack time. Some children show an interest in early attempts at marking as a natural part of their play.

• The staff encourage the children to count, match and make comparisons as they use a range of materials and equipment during play. During the inspection, the children were encouraged to count spoonfuls of ingredients as they prepared a mixture for dough. Songs and rhymes are used effectively as starting points for learning about number.

• Some early scientific ideas are developed through play with sand, water and dough. More needs to be done to exploit fully the early scientific ideas inherent in these activities. The children have opportunities to develop their technological skills and ideas through the use of constructional materials.

• Good use is made of visits to places of interest, and visitors to the centre, to extend the children’s knowledge of, and interest in the world around them. There are some opportunities for the children to learn about living things by growing seeds and bulbs.

11.The staff have made a satisfactory start to developing an appropriate system of assessment. They know the children well and have begun to make some relevant observations of the children’s play. The staff should now develop the process further and establish a clearer link between the children’s achievements and the planning of the programme, in order to match the provision more closely to the children’s stages of development. Information on the children’s progress is shared with the parents during individual meetings; the staff now need to ensure that their reports reflect fully the children’s progress.

12.The centre has established useful links with the local primary school. There is good co-operation between the school and the centre; some of the year 1 teachers regularly visit the centre to meet the children and to help to ensure a smooth transition to school.

13.The staff display commitment to the development of the centre; they are hard-working, dedicated and co-operate well as a team. The staff value the support provided by the management committee, and the advice and guidance offered by the centre’s early years specialist.

14.The quality of the accommodation is satisfactory. With the exception of energetic physical play, the playroom provides adequate space for the activities. Once a week, the centre has access to a large hall for physical play and, when the weather permits, the staff can use a small outdoor area. On the day of the inspection, this area was not used. The toilets are located outside the playroom and a member of staff has to accompany the children.

15.The centre has an adequate supply of basic resources. There is a need to develop further the range of items available for aspects of play in order to support a broad and progressive programme over the year.

16.The strengths of the centre include:

• the friendly, well-behaved children and the good relationships between the staff and the children;

• the suitable period of uninterrupted play and the many instances of concentrated and productive activity;

• the satisfactory provision made in most areas of the curriculum;

• the progress made in developing aspects of the centre’s work;

• the dedicated and committed staff.

17.The inspection has identified areas which require action. In addressing the most important areas, the centre needs to:

• develop further the planning and assessment methods in order to ensure that the staff exploit more fully the learning potential within the play activities and meet the children’s differing needs;

• extend the range and variety of resources in order to support the implementation of a broad and balanced pre-school curriculum that progresses steadily over the year.

18.Overall, the quality of the educational provision in this pre-school centre is clearly satisfactory but improvements are needed in the areas identified if the needs of the children are to be met fully. The staff should draw up a plan to address these areas. The Department’s Inspectorate will monitor the progress being made.

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Copies of this report may be obtained from the Inspection Services Branch, Department of Education, Rathgael House, 43 Balloo Road, Bangor, CoDownBT197PR. A copy is also available on the DE website: