/ Providing Inspection Services for
Department of Education
Department for Employment and Learning
Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure
Inspection of Nippers Alley Playgroup,
Loughmacrory, Omagh
(DE Number: 2AB-0454)
A Report by the Education and Training Inspectorate
November 2002
Introduction
1. Nippers Alley Playgroup is a pre-school centre under voluntary management. At the time of the inspection, a total of eleven children attended the centre; nine 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. All 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. All of those who responded were satisfied or very satisfied with all aspects of the centre’s provision.
THE QUALITY OF THE EDUCATIONAL PROVISION
4. The centre’s positive ethos contributes effectively to the children’s development. There is a relaxed and friendly atmosphere in the centre; relationships among the staff, the parents and the children are very good. The staff provide a secure, supportive environment which helps the children grow in confidence and independence.
The children are at ease with the staff and turn to them readily to participate in their play. The environment is bright and attractive; much thought has been given to creating clearly defined areas for play. Good use is made of a wide range of the children’s art work to create colourful displays around the playroom.
5. The centre is developing effective links with the parents. Prior to the children starting to attend the centre, the staff organise drop-in visits and an open-night, and provide an information booklet for the parents. Appropriate settling-in procedures are operated. The staff intend to develop a monthly newsletter to help inform the parents about the centre’s pre-school programme and encourage them to play a role in the education of their children. In addition to the daily informal meetings, the parents are invited into the centre three times during the year to discuss their children’s progress with the staff.
6. The centre has a written policy on child protection. The staff are aware of appropriate procedures to safeguard the welfare of the children. The centre’s policy and procedures have been shared with the parents both in writing and at an organised meeting.
7. During the last six months, the staff have made very good progress in developing the written planning. Themes and topics are incorporated skilfully into the detailed plans in order to provide stimulating and varied learning experiences for the children. The short-term planning identifies clearly those aspects of learning which the staff intend to promote through the various play activities.
8. The staff make good use of the time available within the session. During the early part of the morning, the lengthy period of uninterrupted play provides the children with opportunities to explore freely the full range of activities and to develop their play. The snack time is organised informally and is used effectively to foster the children’s independence and conversational skills. There are daily opportunities for group stories and informal singing sessions which the children clearly enjoy.
9. The staff are caring and supportive and are successful in encouraging the children to play in a settled manner. They frequently encourage the children to make choices and decisions for themselves and often engage them in valuable conversations about their play. The quality of the staff’s interaction is, however, variable and opportunities for learning are sometimes missed. The staff need to develop a more consistent approach to their involvement in the play in order to promote fully the children’s learning.
10. The centre’s programme promotes effectively the children’s all-round development. The broad range of interesting activities provides satisfactory or good opportunities for learning in all the areas of the pre-school curriculum. The points which follow illustrate specific aspects of the programme.
· The children’s play is settled; the opportunity for the children to choose freely from the activities fosters their independence and promotes their involvement in the play. The children are friendly and relate well to one another. There are many instances of good co-operative play when the children share materials agreeably. The children show respect for the play materials and willingly help at tidy-up time.
· The children’s abilities to control small tools, such as paintbrushes and glue-spreaders, are developed effectively. There are daily opportunities to develop some physical skills through energetic play in the playroom. Currently, the outdoor area cannot be used for play; when the weather permits, the staff make use of the nearby park and surrounding grounds for nature walks. The centre has identified appropriately outdoor play as an area for future development.
· The attractive arrangement of materials in the creative art area encourages the children to explore independently and to express their own ideas. The staff value the work of the children and display it with care around the playroom.
· The centre has an attractive book area and incorporates information books into some areas of play. On the day of the inspection, some children browsed through the cookery book in the home corner and were able to relate the illustrations to their own experiences. The group stories are read with enthusiasm and engage the children’s attention. The children are introduced to text incidentally through captions displayed around the room and by the appropriate use of their names on arrival. The provision of paper and writing tools is helping to generate an interest in experimental writing.
· The staff often use appropriate mathematical language when participating in the children’s play and promote an interest in counting, recognising shape, and making comparisons. During the inspection, the children were encouraged to compare the different sizes of the rectangular materials available in the creative area.
· There are many opportunities for the children to learn about the living environment, explore materials and form ideas about how things work. On the day of the inspection, the staff made effective use of a coconut to promote the children’s awareness of texture, sound and taste. The children’s participation in simple cookery activities throughout the year including, for example, making dough and jellies, helps them gain an early awareness of the changes that occur during the cooking process. There are good opportunities for the children to learn about living things by caring for the regular visitors to the bird table.
· Good use is made of seasonal and environmental topics to extend the children’s knowledge of, and interest in, the world around them. The children’s experiences are extended usefully by members of the local community who visit the centre, including, for example, a nurse and a hairdresser, and by visits to places of interest, such as the farm.
11. The staff operate a key-worker system: they regularly observe and evaluate the quality of the children’s responses to play and are developing an appropriate system of assessment. The staff now need to
consolidate and refine their methods in order to ensure that adequate information is recorded on each child’s progress. They also need to link the assessment information more clearly to the planning to ensure that the children’s differing needs are met.
12. There are some informal links with the local primary school. The centre intends to strengthen these links in order to provide the school with information about the children’s progress and to ensure that the children make a smooth transition to year 1.
13. Over the past year, the centre has experienced frequent changes in staffing. The leader took up her post in April2002. She is very hard-working and manages the centre effectively. The staff are beginning to work as a team. They have implemented many improvements in the provision within the past six months and display a willingness to develop their practice further. The staff value the involvement of the early years specialist and the support provided by the management committee.
14. The centre has recently moved to new premises, which are shared with an after-schools club. The quality of the accommodation is very good: the centre is bright and spacious and is set in an attractive rural setting. The toilets are situated outside the playroom and a member of staff has to accompany the children. There is limited storage space.
15. The centre has recently purchased additional resources which are helping to support the implementation of a broad and balanced pre-school programme. Authentic items and materials supplied by parents enhance the children’s play experiences. The staff have identified appropriately the need to develop the resources further in order to provide additional challenge and progression throughout the year.
16. The strengths of the centre include:
· the relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and the very good relationships among the children, the parents and the staff;
· the creation of a bright and attractive learning environment with defined areas for play;
· the children’s good behaviour and settled play;
· the good start made to planning an interesting and varied programme, and the satisfactory or good opportunities to learn in all areas of the pre-school curriculum;
· the lengthy period of uninterrupted play that provides a good opportunity for the children to make choices and develop their ideas;
· the hard-working and dedicated staff and the sense of team spirit;
· the recent improvements to aspects of the provision and the staff’s willingness to address those areas which require further attention.
17. The inspection has identified some areas which require action. In addressing the most important areas, the centre needs to:
· ensure that the staff’s interaction with the children is consistently of a high quality and is effective in exploiting all the opportunities for promoting learning;
· develop further the assessment methods in order to ensure that the children’s progress is identified clearly and that the information is linked to the planning to enable the children’s differing needs to be met.
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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ã CROWN COPYRIGHT 2003
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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, Co Down BT19 7PR. A copy is also available on the DE website: www.deni.gov.uk