Congratulations to Ashgrove Park Day Nursery!
Last July, Ashgrove Park Day Nursery had their Ofsted inspection and were judged as outstanding! This is well deserved for Sue as General Manager, Toni as Manager and the whole of the staff team at the nursery.
BAND met up with Sue to hear about the inspection and what is happening at the nursery that has contributed to their outstanding judgement.
What is happening at the setting?
Planning: Sue fedback that ‘the biggest influence on the outstanding is the move to in the moment planning; the training with Anna Ephgrave was inspirational and that the new process has revolutionised the way the team works’. Observations only are recorded and Tapestry serves now as a photo log; prior to this change, the nursery felt that all the forms and record keeping were for meeting an Ofsted need, not one for themselves or the children so this has been a positive move forward. Children have free flow all day with breaks for meal times only; rolling snack has also been introduced to minimize breaks to the children’s play. Parents have feedback every 6 weeks with a staff member; the parent also fills in a sheet about what is going on at home for the child so there is a good share of information. The teams passion for this would have been seen by the Ofsted inspector and contributed to the judgement.
Staff support: Sue fedback ‘ the staff are the most important resource we have’. To support them the nursery is signed up with a company that provides confidential telephone support to all staff and access to counselling sessions. The nursery also runs a mix of initiatives to support staff morale for example:
- A kindness bowl – this is a bowl filled with mini-sweets that is taken round to the staff team every week by an allocated staff member. The staff member gives a sweet and most importantly a compliment to each person.
- Free fruit bowl – the nursery orders extra fruit and provides a fruit bowl for staff to help themselves to.
- Employee of the month – voted on by the staff for those who have gone above and beyond. Every 6 months the names of the winners are put into a hat and the name drawn receives a voucher.
The nursery gives extra toil to staff who have not been off sick; 1 hours toil for every month that a staff member is not off sick and half a days leave for a year with no sickness. Staff can accrue the toil which gives them an extra day off when they choose. Sue said it had helped sickness levels to an extent, but also had given staff a boost with the extra time off as recognition.
Sue has been influenced by training by Shonette Basonwood in this area: https://www.spreadthehappiness.co.uk/ .
Linking with other settings:
Sue believes one of the biggest changes in the last 5 years in her area is the support and collaborative working between nurseries. She is linked in via NDNA to a local group of people who now also meet independently and have a whatsapp group for support. She goes to Bristol North meetings and is also linked in with about 3 other nurseries on a regular basis and meets with new managers to support them. Sue’s supervision is also provided by another nursery manager in one of the settings she links with.
New post: The setting has a new post as Curriculum Lead for 2 days per week, and this has created positive change within the nursery. The Curriculum Lead has written a cultural Capital Statement, a Curriculum Statement and a 3 I’s statement; these are displayed in each room of the nursery and each month at a team meeting the staff have an opportunity to discuss one. The post also included peer observations, auditing focus sheets and tracking.
What happened during the inspection:
As soon has Sue had the warning of the inspection, she checked in with staff in each of the rooms and asked ‘What are you worried about?’; giving examples such as Prevent, safeguarding etc meant she could run through any areas that staff were concerned about as a quick reminder. In team meetings, there is also always a safeguarding topic with staff explaining how they understand it first of all so staff are practiced in discussing these areas.
Sue did a ‘Learning Walk with inspector and talked about everything to do with the nursery in this time. Sue consciously used new terms that are being flagged up at the moment eg talking about cultural capital.
The Ofsted inspectors observed practice and spoke to every staff member present. Questions were on: Prevent, specific children eg ‘If you didn’t know this child, what would you do?’, supervision (how often, how supportive), safeguarding. In the baby room, the inspector asked about every child in the room (where their progress was, cohort information, a lot of detail). The inspector observed a child and checked that the staff obs were in line with what she had seen.
The leadership and management meeting took over an hour. The Inspector asked to see complaints log, asked about self-evaluation (the setting used to do Bristol Standard, then the online SEF, and now is about to put in place new self evaluation based on some recent NDNA training), and planning. The Inspector was not concerned that the setting does not keep paper records on planning, and a conversation about it was deemed suitable.
Outcome: Outstanding!! Well done to all at Ashgrove Park Day Nursery!!
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