Extract from The Ofsted report of 01/07/2010

Full report can be read at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/oxcare_reports/display/(id)/283200

The overall effectiveness of the early years provision

Overall the quality of the provision is outstanding.

Staff's in-depth knowledge of each child’s needs, inspirational interaction and an effectively organised, highly stimulating learning  environment ensure that they are extremely successful in promoting all aspects of children’s learning and welfare. As a result, children are very safe and secure, enjoy their learning and make very good progress, given their age, abilities and starting points. A rigorous planning and assessment system, which leads to stimulating, rich and varied experiences and acknowledges children’s interests and individual learning needs, is used very effectively to guide planning. The partnerships with parents and other agencies that are involved with children are good. A very strong commitment to self-evaluation by the manager and staff team ensures that priorities for future development are promptly identified and acted on. This results in a service that maintains very effective continuous improvement.

The quality and standards of the early years provision and outcomes for children

Staff provide a welcoming, child-friendly and calm environment where a wide range of rich, varied and high quality resources and activities effectively challenge children of various ages and abilities. Children are extremely safe and secure. They are able to gain an excellent knowledge and understanding of the world through stimulating first hand experiences such as visiting a farm to observe the animals. They enthusiastically take turns to feed and observe both fish and tadpoles in indoor tanks and talk excitedly about what they see them doing. Children are developing excellent skills in problem solving, reasoning and numeracy through engaging in activities such as counting and sorting the cherries collected from a tree. As a result the older children use mathematical language confidently during their play. Staff are highly skilled at modelling problem solving language to help children find solutions. For example, they help children successfully find resources to direct water away from their play. Children are also able to use language for an increasing range of purposes, which can be seen as they confidently negotiate which part of a resource to hold when carrying it together into a room. They have lots of opportunities to develop choice and decision making skills. They serve their own meals and choose their cutlery and plates.

The staff know the children very well and effectively use information from observation and assessment to ensure that children achieve as much as they can in relation to their starting points and capabilities. They gather extremely detailed information in ‘All about me’ booklets, which enables them to carefully ascertain children's starting points. They regularly share information obtained from observations in all areas of learning to plan the next steps in children’s learning. Adults interact extremely well with the children and have a very good understanding of how they learn. They extend children’s learning by providing additional resources to support their interests. For example, when children show curiosity about insects by bringing in their own toys, staff provide books and small world resources that allow the children to explore the insects' natural habitat. They interact sensitively in children’s role play, encouraging the use of imagination and developing their skills in communication, language and literacy by consistently asking open-ended questions. This motivates the children to think and make suggestions. For example, after children instigate a crash scenario with small world resources, the staff invite them to suggest what they need to do, who they may need to contact and how they can do this. As a result, children are very confident and enthusiastic to make suggestions and share their concerns and needs.