Kaimhill Primary School Nursery
Day Care of Children
Pitmedden Terrace Aberdeen
AB10 7HR
Telephone: 01224 498150
Inspected by: Morag Skinner Type of inspection: Unannounced
Contents
Page No
Summary 3
1 About the service we inspected 5
2 How we inspected this service 6
3 The inspection 10
4 Other information 20
5 Summary of grades 21
6 Inspection and grading history 21
Service provided by:
Aberdeen City Council
Service provider number:
SP2003000349
Care service number:
CS2003014437
Contact details for the inspector who inspected this service:
Morag Skinner
Telephone 01224 793870
Email [email protected]
Summary
This report and grades represent our assessment of the quality of the areas of performance which were examined during this inspection.
Grades for this care service may change after this inspection following other
regulatory activity. For example, if we have to take enforcement action to make the service improve, or if we investigate and agree with a complaint someone makes about the service.
We gave the service these grades
Quality of Care and Support 5 Very Good Quality of Environment 5 Very Good Quality of Staffing 5 Very Good Quality of Management and Leadership 5 Very Good
What the service does well
We identified these key strengths in the areas inspected:
* children appeared happy, relaxed, stimulated and motivated as they played; * staff were very good at providing pastoral care, were approachable and knew children very well;
* the management and staff team showed a strong commitment to continually improving the overall service provided to children and their families.
What the service could do better
This inspection identified that there were specific areas of work which needed to be addressed. These included improving communication between staff and further improving the use of both the indoor and outdoor play space making use of the talents of the nursery staff.
What the service has done since the last inspection
The nursery had moved into new purpose built premises since the last inspection and staff had worked hard to ensure a smooth transition for the children as well as
parents and carers.
During this inspection, we saw that management and staff had worked hard to develop and progress learning opportunities for the children. The nursery had further improved consultation with parents and children and used the feedback gained to improve outcomes for all those involved in the nursery.
Conclusion
We saw that the nursery environment was bright and welcoming and there was a very good range of information displayed along with children's work and a selection of photographs illustrating children at work and play. We saw that staff interacted with the children in a kind, warm and respectful manner. We noted that children were well-settled in the nursery and enjoyed their learning. Management and staff
demonstrated that they had a clear vision for the future of the nursery and that this continued to value the involvement of parents. The team demonstrated that they had a willingness and enthusiasm to improve the nursery still further.
Who did this inspection
Morag Skinner
1 About the service we inspected
Before 1 April 2011 Kaimhill Primary School Nursery was registered with the Care Commission. On this date the new scrutiny body, Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland, known as the Care Inspectorate, took over the work of the Care Commission, including the registration of care services. This means that from 1 April 2011, Kaimhill Primary School Nursery continued its registration under the new body, The Care Inspectorate.
Kaimhill is registered to care for a maximum of 40 children, each session, from three years to those not yet attending primary school.
The nursery operates from two adjoining open plan classrooms. This provides seperate areas for children's play. The children can utilise a dedicated enclosed garden area immediately outside the classoom and changing facilities and toilets are available for children's use.
The aims of the nursery included valuing each child and working with parents/carers to promote the social emotional, physical, intellectual and creative development of all children.
Based on the findings of this inspection this service has been awarded the following grades:
Quality of Care and Support - Grade 5 - Very Good Quality of Environment - Grade 5 - Very Good Quality of Staffing - Grade 5 - Very Good
Quality of Management and Leadership - Grade 5 - Very Good
This report and grades represent our assessment of the quality of the areas of performance which were examined during this inspection.
Grades for this care service may change following other regulatory activity. You can find the most up-to-date grades for this service by visiting our website
www.careinspectorate.com or by calling us on 0845 600 9527 or visiting one of our offices.
2 How we inspected this service
The level of inspection we carried out
In this service we carried out a low intensity inspection. We carry out these inspections when we are satisfied that services are working hard to provide consistently high standards of care.
What we did during the inspection
We wrote this report after an unannounced inspection which took place on 20 December 2012 between 9.00am and 11.30am and was completed on the afternoon of 15 January 2013. The inspection was carried out by Inspector, Morag Skinner. We gave feedback on findings from the inspection, at the end of the second inspection visit to the Head Teacher.
As requested by us, the nursery completed and sent us an annual return. The nursery also sent us a completed self-assessment form highlighting what they felt were their strengths and what they felt they could do better.
We provided the nursery with ten questionnaires for parents and carers of children attending. We received five completed questionnaires prior to the inspection. We also spoke to approximately eight parents and carers on the first day of the inspection when they collected their children after the children's Christmas party.
In this inspection, we gathered evidence from various sources, including the relevant sections of policies, procedures, records and other documents, including:
* Care Inspectorate self assessment * Nursery Handbook
* Nursery Welcome booklet * Newsletters
* Displayed information on noticeboards, photographs and children's work * Certificate of registration
* Daily attendance records * Medication protocols
* Accident and incident records for children and staff * Personal Learning Journeys
We spoke with the Head Teacher and most staff on duty who, during the first day of the inspection comprised a Principal Teacher, a teacher, two nursery nurses and a parent helper. We also spoke with approximately eight children during the inspection.
We also observed how the staff worked with the children and examined the equipment and the environment.
Grading the service against quality themes and statements
We inspect and grade elements of care that we call 'quality themes'. For example, one of the quality themes we might look at is 'Quality of care and support'. Under each quality theme are 'quality statements' which describe what a service should be doing well for that theme. We grade how the service performs against the quality themes and statements.
Details of what we found are in Section 3: The inspection
Inspection Focus Areas (IFAs)
In any year we may decide on specific aspects of care to focus on during our
inspections. These are extra checks we make on top of all the normal ones we make during inspection. We do this to gather information about the quality of these aspects of care on a national basis. Where we have examined an inspection focus area we will clearly identify it under the relevant quality statement.
Fire safety issues
We do not regulate fire safety. Local fire and rescue services are responsible for checking services. However, where significant fire safety issues become apparent, we will alert the relevant fire and rescue services so they may consider what action to take. You can find out more about care services' responsibilities for fire safety at www.firelawscotland.org
The annual return
Every year all care services must complete an 'annual return' form to make sure the information we hold is up to date. We also use annual returns to decide how we will inspect the service.
Annual Return Received: Yes - Electronic
Comments on Self Assessment
Every year all care services must complete a 'self assessment' form telling us how their service is performing. We check to make sure this assessment is accurate.
We received a self assessment document. We were satisfied with the way this had been completed and with the information which had been relevant at the time of completion for each of the headings that we grade the nursery under.
The nursery identified what they thought they did well and some areas for development.
Taking the views of people using the care service into account
There were 26 children present on the first morning of the unannounced inspection. We saw that the children were happy, confident and sociable. Several of them chatted to us about what they were doing and about other activities they had taken part in. Please see a range of the children's comments below in response to specific
questions we asked during the inspection: "I like dancing."
"I like playing basketball because it's tricky. We have a little one at nursery." "We do exercises in the gym to warm up."
"We normally have stuff like pancakes for snack with water. Something different every day."
"No screaming. The children are being too noisy." "Look at the big snow. We dig it up like this." "We can play builders outside."
"I can do snowball fights outside, but no biting." "I've got and 'a' and a 'b' but the 'c' is missing."
Taking carers' views into account
Five parents completed Care Inspectorate questionnaires prior to the inspection. Specific comments received included:
"X enjoys going to nursery and looks forward to going. She is always welcomed in to the class by one of the teachers."
"I feel the teachers and nursery nurses take an interest and are aware of what x likes and dislikes doing but they also encourage her to try new things."
"If my child is happy then I'm happy which he is. "
"The staff are all very welcoming and show they care for my child." Comments within the parents folder in the nursery included:
"Excellent work, brilliant, X really enjoys her time at nursery and looks forward to going."
3 The inspection
We looked at how the service performs against the following quality themes and statements. Here are the details of what we found.
Quality Theme 1: Quality of Care and Support
Grade awarded for this theme: 5 - Very Good Statement 1
We ensure that service users and carers participate in assessing and improving the quality of the care and support provided by the service.
Service strengths
The nursery had a very good approach to involving children and families in assessing and influencing the quality of care and support provided to their children, the
environment in which their children were cared for, the staff who looked after their children and the overall management and leadership of the nursery.
The nursery provided very good quality information to parents about what they could expect of the service. We saw that a nursery handbook for parents and welcome booklet for children were provided before new children started in the nursery. This meant that families knew what to expect from an early stage. Daily contact with parents provided opportunities for information-sharing and, written information about the nursery was also readily accessible. This included a variety of displayed notices, topic displays, newsletters and children's Learning Journeys. In December Groupcall was installed - a system to enable text messages to be sent about school events. This meant that parents could be kept up to date about what was happening at school. A website was available to parents and there was a Blog page for the nursery so that parents could get information even if they could not get into the nursery themselves. As a result we felt that the nursery was trying hard to reach all parents although they acknowledged that most parents preferred face to face contact. We saw that Open Mornings had been offered to parents prior to the children starting in nursery providing parents/carers with an opportunity to ask questions and for children to experience some of the activities that would take place within the nursery. In addition we saw that Open Afternoons had been offered for families and friends to go into the nursery and see some of the active learning which went on.
Parents had been invited to take part in the Diamond Jubilee and Mothers Day celebrations further fostering partnership working.
When each child started in the nursery we saw that parents were invited to sign up for the "Parental Involvement in Nursery Education" initiative. Each parent was asked to be involved in helping in nursery on a rota basis. They could help with such
activities as creativity, role play, story telling and sharing their own talents working alongside nursery staff and taking an active role in their children's learning. In
addition we saw that parents had been invited to attend meetings on the Curriculum for Excellence, Literacy, Numeracy, P1 Programmes of Work, Nursery Curriculums and a meeting about entry to primary 1.
Parents and carers were members of the school's Parent Forum and had the
opportunity to be members of the Parent Council. The Additional Support Needs (ASN) Parents Forum provided nursery parents who had pupils with additional support needs with an opportunity o go along to meet other parents throughout the school and educational professionals. This meant that they could discuss common issues share concerns.
Staff had asked parents for their written views in questionnaires and we saw that parent's responses were mainly very positive.
Interactions between staff and children were seen to be warm and supportive. Staff were observed to seek children's views and opinions throughout the day as well as at group time and these were incorporated into their activities. A variety of wall displays showed previous and current topic work undertaken with children.
Areas for improvement
The nursery identified in the self assessment that they would like to promote "Coffee in the Foyer afternoons" and seek ways to further improve parents and carers
attendance at whole school initiatives for meetings such as those promoting the curriculum.
Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good Number of requirements: 0
Statement 3
We ensure that service users' health and wellbeing needs are met. Service strengths
The nursery was found to have a very good performance in relation to promoting children's health and well-being.
Children's attendance was recorded by parents and staff on arrival. This meant that staff were able to maintain an accurate record throughout the day.
There were regular opportunities for physical play for all children. During the
inspection, the children went outdoors and we saw children having fun in the snow. This meant that they benefited from fresh air and exercise. We saw that the timetable showed regular use of the school gym hall twice per week and we heard that the children enjoyed the use of additional space within the school on wet days. In addition the children make use of the library as well as the school grounds outwith the garden, such as the raised flower beds and astro turf area to add to their learning experiences.
We noted that healthy eating was being promoted throughout the nursery and was incorporated into the nursery snack menus. We saw the children enjoying a nutritious snack of fresh fruit with either milk or water. They were encouraged to be
independent and to learn social skills as they ate together in groups.
Areas for improvement
We saw that each child had a personal learning journey. Photographs of the children at play and regular observations of the children demonstrated that the staff had an understanding of the developmental stage of each child and of the interests of each of their key children. This meant that staff could take an individualised approach to meet the social and emotional needs of each child. The recording was still at an early stage and could be further developed.
Incident records were maintained. However we noted that parents were not asked to sign the incident forms. They merely noted that "parents had been informed". Parents should be asked to sign the forms as a lasting record.
Children were taking part in the National Toothbrushing programme but some
children were only undertaking toothbrushing twice per week. Steps should be taken to increase children's access to daily toothbrushing to promote good routines for daily toothbrushing as soon as a stable staff team is in place to put this in place.
The nursery should continue to work towards greater access to the outdoors for all children with free flow opportunities for children being incorporated into the daily routine.
Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good Number of requirements: 0
Number of recommendations: 0
Quality Theme 2: Quality of Environment
Grade awarded for this theme: 5 - Very Good Statement 1
We ensure that service users and carers participate in assessing and improving the quality of the environment within the service.
Service strengths
Evidence for this statement is included under statement 1.1.
Areas for improvement
Evidence for this statement is included under statement 1.1. Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good
Number of requirements: 0 Number of recommendations: 0
Statement 2
We make sure that the environment is safe and service users are protected. Service strengths
The nursery was found to have a very good performance in relation to making sure the environment was safe and children were protected.
The nursery operated from a modern purpose built unit with a high standard of accommodation. The surroundings were bright, attractive and in a very good stare of repair. We saw that very good use was made of the storage space and there were a wide range of resources to help provide a stimulating environment and develop the children's learning. We saw that rooms were well organised and accessible for all users including those with additional support needs and/or physical disabilities. The nursery entrance remained secure at all times. During the inspection we saw that the staff ensured that the parents, carers and children entered and left the building safely.
There was some very good evidence to support the nursery's approach to child protection matters. The child protection policy detailed staff responsibilities and the actions to be taken if concerns arose. All staff had received updated child protection training each session and were clear about what to do initially if they had concerns about a child in their care. Detailed up to date records were maintained appropriately by the child protection co-ordinator.
Areas for improvement
We saw that some foods within the kitchen did not have the date recording when they had been decanted from their original packaging. A system should be in place for noting and monitoring these dates.
Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good Number of requirements: 0
Number of recommendations: 0
Quality Theme 3: Quality of Staffing
Grade awarded for this theme: 5 - Very Good Statement 1
We ensure that service users and carers participate in assessing and improving the quality of staffing in the service.
Service strengths
Evidence for this statement is included under statement 1.1.
Areas for improvement
Evidence for this statement is included under statement 1.1.Evidence for this statement is included under statement 1.1.
Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good Number of recommendations: 0
Number of requirements: 0
Statement 3
We have a professional, trained and motivated workforce which operates to National Care Standards, legislation and best practice.
Service strengths
The nursery demonstrated that a very good range of methods were in place to ensure that staff were professional, trained and motivated.
All nursery staff were appropriately qualified and experienced and this ensured positive outcomes for children. Individual staff had a balance of skills and experience relevant to the service. We saw staff work very well together and they were motivated and enthusiastic about their work with the children. Staff had very good relationships with the children and their families and engaged in meaningful dialogue with them. This was particularly apparent at the end of the session when we heard staff tell parents of their children's day and what they had been doing.
All relevant staff were registered with the Scottish Social Services Council and
demonstrated their commitment to on going professional development. We saw that the teacher was registered with the General Teaching Council.
We saw that all staff had had training opportunities to develop their skills and keep up to date with modern practices relevant to their work within the nursery. All staff underwent CPD reviews annually and were given very good opportunities to develop their interests with a wide variety of training opportunities. We saw that staff took advantage of these opportunities and were keen to build on their skills and
knowledge. This meant that a learning culture was being promoted.
We saw minutes which confirmed that staff attended regular meetings which provided them with the opportunity to undertake planning, discuss operational matters, share best practice and receive training updates.
Areas for improvement
Management should continue to provide support to staff working in difficult circumstances striving for excellence without a team of consistent staff members. Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good
Number of requirements: 0
Quality Theme 4: Quality of Management and Leadership
Grade awarded for this theme: 5 - Very Good Statement 1
We ensure that service users and carers participate in assessing and improving the quality of the management and leadership of the service.
Service strengths
Evidence for this statement is included under statement 1.1.
Areas for improvement
Evidence for this statement is included under statement 1.1. Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good
Number of requirements: 0 Number of recommendations: 0
Statement 4
We use quality assurance systems and processes which involve service users, carers, staff and stakeholders to assess the quality of service we provide
Service strengths
The Head Teacher had overall responsibility for the nursery and provided managerial support to the staff team.
The management and staff team were clearly committed to the ongoing improvement of the nursery and discussion throughout the inspection and at feedback demonstrated that they were continually seeking new opportunities to further develop the service.
The Head Teacher told us that there were monitoring systems in place. The Head Teacher had been covering for an absent staff member for a considerable period so had been working full time in the nursery in the classrooms providing support and encouragement to staff. She observed staff's practice and discussion with staff supported changes she felt would be beneficial.
A School Improvement Plan was in place. Stakeholders contributed to this through the use of questionnaires, formal and informal interviews and meetings. Quality
Assurance visits from Education Officers contributed to the process.
Some systems were in place to facilitate on-going consultation with parents, enabling them to comment on the service and make suggestions for improvement. Parents were given the collated results of the annual questionnaires. This meant that parents knew that their views were important.
Areas for improvement
The nursery should continue to develop ways in which to seek the views of children and parents and also to seek the views of other stakeholders, such as therapists, outside agencies and visitors to the nursery to assess the quality of the service provided.
Grade awarded for this statement: 5 - Very Good Number of requirements: 0
4 Other information
Complaints
No complaints have been upheld, or partially upheld, since the last inspection.
Enforcements
We have taken no enforcement action against this care service since the last inspection.
Additional Information
Action Plan
Failure to submit an appropriate action plan within the required timescale, including any agreed extension, where requirements and recommendations have been made, will result in SCSWIS re-grading the Quality Statement within the Management and Leadership Theme as unsatisfactory (1). This will result in the Quality Theme for Management and Leadership being re-graded as Unsatisfactory (1).
5 Summary of grades
Quality of Care and Support - 5 - Very Good
Statement 1 5 - Very Good Statement 3 5 - Very Good Quality of Environment - 5 - Very Good
Statement 1 5 - Very Good Statement 2 5 - Very Good Quality of Staffing - 5 - Very Good
Statement 1 5 - Very Good Statement 3 5 - Very Good Quality of Management and Leadership - 5 - Very Good
Statement 1 5 - Very Good Statement 4 5 - Very Good
6 Inspection and grading history
Date Type Gradings
2 Mar 2012 Re-grade Care and support Not Assessed Environment Not Assessed Staffing Not Assessed Management and Leadership 3 - Adequate
2 Mar 2012 Re-grade Care and support Not Assessed Environment Not Assessed
5 Feb 2009 Unannounced Care and support 5 - Very Good Environment 5 - Very Good Staffing 4 - Good Management and Leadership 4 - Good
All inspections and grades before 1 April 2011 are those reported by the former regulator of care services, the Care Commission.
To find out more about our inspections and inspection reports
Read our leaflet 'How we inspect'. You can download it from our website or ask us to send you a copy by telephoning us on 0845 600 9527.
This inspection report is published by the Care Inspectorate. You can get more copies of this report and others by downloading it from our website:
www.careinspectorate.com or by telephoning 0845 600 9527.
Translations and alternative formats
This inspection report is available in other languages and formats on request.
