Our latest Ofsted report
We were visited by Ofsted on 30th January 2024, the report has now been published and the link is included on this page. This was an unannounced inspection and the whole staff team really pulled together for the entire day and you can see the dedication and passion that everyone here at Starfish has and continues to have since the inspection.
Strengths highlighted by the inspector in the report are:
Staff provide children with a language-rich learning environment. They successfully develop children's vocabulary, for instance, by talking aloud and asking questions when younger children play imaginatively with role-play resources. Staff respond to older children's questions and skilfully explain the meaning of words. For example, when children ask about words such as 'extinction' and 'species' while listening to stories.
Staff develop positive, caring, emotional relationships with children. They focus strongly on developing children's confidence, independence and social skills. For instance, they thank older children when they help to tidy up and respond to their requests to be 'a helper' at lunchtime. Children confidently use tongs to serve themselves food, such as jacket potatoes. Staff help children learn how to use cutlery and carry serving dishes safely.
Staff support all children, including babies, to share and take turns. They remind children to be kind to their friends and to remember that this is one of the nursery's 'golden rules'.
Staff work well in partnership with parents to provide continuity for children. At the beginning and end of each day, they talk with parents about the activities and their children's progress. Parents spoken to during the inspection say they like the book lending library recently introduced for them to support their children's learning at home.
The manager uses robust recruitment and induction policies and procedures to employ staff. She makes sure that all staff currently working at the nursery have undergone relevant checks to identify they are suitable to work with children.
This was our first inspection since April 2022, and the visit was the result of anonymous complaints relating to room ratios, staff qualifications, suitability of staff, food portions and our communication with parents. Please rest assured that we retain all necessary records to evidence compliance with requirements on staffing ratios, qualifications and suitability so we are pleased to report the inspector did not uphold any of these complaints. The inspector spoke to a few select parents on the day, and I am pleased to say she was very happy with the feedback from parents about our nursery, and our care. The whole report reads really well, and there are some really lovely comments in there from the inspector.
We did a joint observation (inspector and manager) in Rainbow Fish as one of the complaints was about food portions, and children not being given enough food whilst at nursery. The inspector was very happy with the portion sizes, and when she observed lunchtime in Jellyfish she was pleasantly shocked at how much food we have, and how many times the children filled their plates up! When observing the Rainbow Fish room, the snack routine was not flawless, and the inspector made note of this. A member of staff sat with children who had already washed their hands, and started serving snack, whilst the other member of staff helped the other children to wash their hands. This did not work well, and from this, we have already changed the way we structure our meal times, and communicate with one another. The feedback from the inspector on our report was:
‘The snack time for younger children is sometimes not organised well. For example, during the inspection, staff did not prepare enough space for all the children to sit at the tables, which resulted in some children having to wait a long time to eat.’
To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should:
review and improve the organisation of snack times, so that children do not have to wait for extended periods to eat.
Our only ‘action’ from our whole inspection apart from the recommendation above is:
What does the setting need to do to improve?
To meet the requirements of the early years foundation stage, the provider must:
support staff to develop a secure understanding of how to identify and address any gaps in children's development.
Our inspector noticed that we have a couple of children who may need additional support who are not already on our SEN register. We explained that we as a nursery had been working on identifying children with possible additional needs, and discussed this again only the week prior to our inspection in our staff meeting. We made the inspector aware that we had already started working on this point, and were in the process of gathering any evidence needed such as observations and assessments to further support these children. As many of you know, Maddy has now taken over as our SENCO, and has made amazing progress working closely with families over the last two months, and also working closely with our Local Authority to ensure we are doing all we can to build a foundation with those children who require additional support. The comments in the report that relate to this point are ‘The support for some of the younger children is not consistently as effective. There are occasions when staff working with the younger children do not always use assessment well enough to identify and respond to any gaps in their development. Therefore, some children do not progress as quickly as they could. However, where children have identified special educational needs and/or disabilities, staff support them well. They work effectively in partnership with parents and other agencies, such as speech and language therapists, to help children move forwards in their learning and development.’. As previously mentioned above, we had already been working hard to ensure we were supporting all children who need the additional support, but had not been able to put enough into place in the short amount of time we have had since I became the Manager of the nursery.
Although we only have one action, and one recommendation on our report, our inspector gave us an overall rating of ‘Requires Improvement’. We were disheartened to receive this rating, and know this is not a true reflection on how we are continually improving all the time. With a ‘Requires Improvement’ rating, Ofsted inspectors revisit the setting within 12 months of the initial inspection, so we expect to see Ofsted again in November/December. Our inspector in January made a comment about how amazing the nursery will be when Ofsted returns, which was a really lovely thing to hear. We have been working hard, and will continue to work hard in the nursery to get the result that we deserve at the end of the year. You’ll see many more changes over the coming months, so please bear with us while we improve our much loved nursery.
Kind regards,
Gracie, Charlotte, and the Starfish team