Report Tempo Comm Pg

Introduction

1.Tempo Community Playgroup is a pre-school centre under voluntary management. At the time of the inspection, a total of 24 children attended the centre; 18 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.

The Quality of the Educational Provision

3.The centre is bright and attractive; good use is made of the children’s art work, photographs and interest areas to create a stimulating learning environment. There is a happy family atmosphere; relationships between the staff and the children are caring and supportive. Generally, the children are well-behaved and most of the children relate well to one another; a few children have difficulty sharing during play.

4.Communication with the parents is good; a booklet, an open day and regular newsletters are designed to share information about the educational programme and to encourage the parents to play a full role in the education of their children. Information about the children’s progress is shared with the parents informally at the beginning and the end of the session and through individual meetings. The inspection provided opportunities for the parents to express their views about the centre. All those who responded were satisfied or very satisfied with all aspects of the provision.

5.The centre has a suitable written policy on child protection. Some additional information needs to be included in the policy to ensure that it is comprehensive. The staff understand clearly all the procedures to be followed to safeguard the children.

6.The staff have made very good progress in planning a pre-school curriculum. The planning outlines a broad and balanced programme for the children, designed to foster their all-round development. It identifies many facets of learning inherent in the various aspects of the play. Observations of the children’s individual responses are noted by the staff and used to guide future work. The regular evaluations made by the staff help to ensure that most aspects of the children’s learning are promoted progressively.

7.The session is organised effectively to provide suitable periods of free play and adequate time for other activities such as outdoor play and story-telling. The informal snack encourages the children to develop some independence and mathematical ideas. The staff need to improve aspects of the routine at snack time in order to provide better opportunities for learning.

8.The staff provide some imaginative activities and materials and are generally effective in fostering sustained and settled play. During the inspection, outdoor play, and play with the road safety and natural materials, promoted learning of good quality. Often the staff incorporate information books into the play and foster an interest in books. Although the staff engage the children in conversation about the activities and thoughtfully develop their ideas, they sometimes miss opportunities to help some of the children to extend their concentration during play.

9.The centre’s programme promotes effectively most aspects of the children’s learning. More attention needs to be given to the promotion of the children’s personal, social and emotional development (PSE).

The staff encourage the children to choose confidently from a stimulating range of activities and materials. Occasionally, a few children lose interest in the materials and become noisy during play. The staff need to be more aware of the needs and responses of the children in order to develop independence, concentration and a sense of responsibility for the play materials.

The children’s abilities to control small tools such as scissors and pencils are developed effectively. During the inspection, good use was made of the outdoor area to provide challenging play with a range of equipment.

The children have opportunities to paint pictures and to create using a wide variety of scrap materials. The children’s art work is valued by the staff and displayed attractively. Throughout the year, the children experience a variety of printing activities and other art techniques. There are frequent opportunities for informal singing and for listening to recorded music; the children have acquired an extensive repertoire of rhymes and songs which they clearly enjoy.

Stories are read skilfully to individuals and to the group and there is strong encouragement for the children to develop an interest in books. The provision of paper and tools generates a high interest in experimental writing. The children’s conversational skills are developed effectively during play in the ‘restaurant’ and are reinforced in other aspects of play when the children are encouraged to discuss foods they know and experiences related to cooking.

The staff use appropriate mathematical language and encourage the children to count, match, make comparisons and recognise shapes in their use of a range of materials and equipment during play.

There are good opportunities for the children to explore materials, observe changes and form ideas about how things work. During the inspection, the children enjoyed experimenting with ‘wind-up dinosaurs’. The opportunities for baking and icing biscuits shaped as dinosaurs raised the children’s awareness of early scientific ideas related to the changes in materials.

The skilful development of imaginative play involving the ‘school crossing patrol’ promotes the children’s awareness of the world around them and helps the children to develop good road safety awareness. The children’s experiences are extended usefully by members of the local community who visit the centre and by visits to places of interest.

10.The staff operate a key-worker system which helps them to gain a good knowledge of individual children. There are good strategies to monitor and evaluate the children’s play and to record their achievements and needs; these records are used purposefully to plan the work and the information is shared with the parents.

11.Valuable links have been established with the two local primary schools. There are opportunities for the children to meet the year 1 teachers; one of the teachers visits the centre to join in a play session.

12.The children identified as having special needs are monitored and much emphasis is placed on providing appropriate activities. The support and encouragement they receive are consistently well-matched to their special needs. The parents are kept well-informed of the children’s progress. There are good links with the pre-school peripatetic support teacher, the speech therapist and the health visitor.

13.The leader is well-organised and has compiled detailed documentation. The staff bring high levels of enthusiasm to their work and there is a good sense of team-work among them. Regular staff meetings ensure there is a shared understanding of the objectives of the play sessions and that the children’s differing needs and interests are considered. The leader is very well-supported by the early years specialist and the management committee.

14.The quality of the accommodation is good; the centre is well-maintained. The children have access to a safe outdoor area for energetic play. The centre has a satisfactory range of resources of good quality which are well-organised and easily accessible to the children. Storage space is adequate.

15.The strengths of the centre include:

the bright and stimulating learning environment;

the happy family atmosphere and the good links with the parents;

the good progress made in planning a broad and balanced pre-school curriculum and the effective methods used to monitor and assess the children’s learning;

the thoughtful development of the special educational needs programme;

the well-organised leader and enthusiastic staff;

the support provided by the early years specialist and the management committee.

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

improve the involvement of the staff in the play in order to promote the children’s PSE.

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