Westfield Centre Children’s Day Care

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is inadequate

Significant and continued failings in leadership have a detrimental impact on children's care, learning and development. The ongoing poor oversight from leaders has failed to identify the continued decline in standards from the last inspection.

Improvement plans identified by local authority advisors have not been implemented until recently. This has resulted in areas for improvement continuing to grow, as previous leadership and management failed to make any changes. The recently recruited experienced manager is aware of the significant weaknesses in practice and is trying hard to overcome these.

However, as oth...er senior staff lack the knowledge and skills needed, the manager has little support to make and secure improvements.Staff are kind and caring. However, weaknesses within the implementation of safeguarding procedures and the key-person system result in children's welfare not being maintained.

Staff provide children with fun activities to participate in. While children enjoy these, they are not purposeful and do not build on their prior knowledge and skills. Staff plan activities based on yearly events, like autumn and Halloween, not around the skills and knowledge they want children to learn.

The lack of support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), also means gaps in children's development are not supported to close. Children's challenging behaviour is inconsistently managed, which does not help them to learn safe behaviours and boundaries.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

Leaders have failed to follow secure recruitment procedures to ensure children are cared for by suitable staff.

The new manager has introduced supervisions of staff, but there is no monitoring of her practice. Therefore, while the manager is beginning to coach staff, she receives little support and/or coaching. Senior staff lack the required skills and knowledge for their roles.

This does not ensure children's needs are met or maintain their safety.Improvements to internal security procedures have helped to increase the security of the nursery. When children go outside to play, they know to sit on the benches while they wait for staff to check the outside area for hazards.

However, staff fail to identify standing water in resources as a potential risk to children. Staff do not empty the water out and children play in this. Staff have no way of knowing if the water is clean and safe for children to play with.

Staff's poor practices do not help children to learn when they may be at risk.The key-person system has recently changed, and the manager is aware it is not yet effective. This is because staff do not always work with their key children.

While staff have an overview of some children's needs, their knowledge is not good enough. Information is either not in place and/or shared, which results in children's needs not being met.The manager has identified significant gaps in staff knowledge of how children learn, including no monitoring systems to assess children's progress.

The manager is supporting staff to begin to assess each child. This will then provide staff with a firm basis on which to support children's future learning and development. However, currently there is no curriculum in place.

This means children are not being supported to make progress or to develop positive attitudes to learning.Children enjoy participating in a range of activities planned by staff. However, staff confirm these activities are not based on children's individual needs or developmental abilities.

For example, staff explain activities are planned for Halloween. The collage activity for two-year-olds has pens, paper and leaves but no glue for sticking. Pre-school children have fun painting spiders, with staff encouraging them to count the number of legs their spiders have.

However, each staff member has no awareness of how the activities support individual children with their next steps in learning. Activities and experiences, therefore, do not support children's progress, as they lack purpose and challenge.Staff are unable to support children with SEND to catch up with their peers.

Details for targeted intervention plans have not been updated for some children since October 2022 and for another child since January 2023. This is despite other professionals visiting recently and sharing new targets for these children. Staff, therefore, fail to use any strategies to support these children or meet their needs.

The lack of clear information also results in delays for external support and services being obtained for these children.Staff inconsistently manage children's challenging behaviour and do not help children learn what is acceptable behaviour. For example, staff sometimes ignore the poor behaviour.

Then at other times, several staff try to intervene and use different strategies to try and manage the behaviour. This uncertainty does not help children to learn to play safely or appropriately with their peers, or conform to acceptable rules and boundaries.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are not effective.

Children's welfare is not protected. Some staff lack knowledge of a wide range of indicators of abuse. They are unfamiliar with how to identify possible signs associated with drugs, radicalisation and extreme views or behaviours.

Staff are aware of the procedures to record information if children arrive with an existing injury. However, completed pre-existing injuries forms lack detail about any injuries and their cause. Staff fail to identify when children may be at risk of abuse or understand when an allegation has been made against a staff member.

Staff, therefore, do not follow safeguarding procedures in a timely manner until directed to do so by the new manager. Although staff have recently undertaken child protection training, they lack confidence and knowledge in these procedures. Children's well-being is, therefore, not maintained.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

The provision is inadequate and Ofsted intends to take enforcement action.

We will issue a Welfare Requirements Notice requiring the provider to: Due date ensure all staff have an up-to-date knowledge of safeguarding issues, so that they are able to identify signs of possible abuse at the earliest opportunity and respond in an appropriate and timely way 14/11/2023 ensure child protection procedures are consistently implemented, with specific regard to obtaining and recording clear information about children's pre-existing injuries where appropriate and recognising when an allegation against a staff member has been made so that relevant procedures can be followed 14/11/2023 ensure senior staff have the required skills and knowledge to undertake their roles 14/11/2023 ensure effective procedures are followed to assess the suitability of staff working with children 14/11/2023 ensure staff understand how to conduct thorough risk assessments, with specific regard to the outdoor area, so that potential hazards are identified and minimised 14/11/2023 implement monitoring arrangements for the performance and practice of the manager, which includes the confidential discussion of sensitive issues 14/11/2023 ensure arrangements in place support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) so that they benefit from effective planning which is regularly reviewed and updated to meet their needs 14/11/2023 review the effectiveness of the key person system to ensure children's individual needs continue to be met 14/11/2023 ensure children's behaviour is managed appropriately and consistently by all staff.14/11/2023 To meet the requirements of the early years foundation stage, the provider must: Due date ensure the curriculum intent focuses on the broad range of skills and knowledge children need to develop over time, and share this with staff, so that children are constantly challenged and supported in their play 18/12/2023 ensure staff monitor children's progress, so they understand each child's level of achievement and interests and then use this information to plan purposeful learning experiences which focus on building on children's prior knowledge and skills.

18/12/2023