Footprints Out Of School Care

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

This provision meets requirements Children thrive at this welcoming club. They benefit from an exciting range of play opportunities that meet their needs. On arrival, children quickly become engrossed in their chosen activities.

They enjoy expressing themselves creatively and delight in drawing pictures of their favourite characters with good attention to detail. They enjoy trying new techniques to get different effects with paint. Adding marbles to trays of paint, they enjoy using these to mix their chosen colours together and to make patterns.

Staff are kind and caring and take time to listen to the children, forming strong bonds. Staff are very nurturin...g and are alert to children's emotional well-being. Children behave extremely well and are supportive of one another.

Staff are clear about their expectations and reinforce club rules routinely, offering gentle reminders, for example, to sit on their chairs with all four chair legs on the floor. They take time to explain to the children the reasons for this and why it helps to keep them safe. Staff encourage children to learn about responsibility and they willingly help to tidy away resources and help with tasks.

They follow hygiene routines well and know to wash their hands before meals and snacks. They have free access to drinking water and help themselves, effectively seeing to their own needs and developing their healthy independence.

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

Staff show a genuine interest in what the children have to say, and they give them their full attention.

This helps to develop strong relationships between staff and the children. Staff actively seek the children's views, ideas, and suggestions. This helps to shape the provision and ensure they are meeting the children's needs and responding to their interests.

Staff ensure children understand what is expected of them on the walk to and from school and staff take regular headcounts of the children. Children are safely released into the staff's care and clear risk assessments are in place for collections and drop offs to school. The children tell the inspector how they wear high-visibility jackets so that they can be seen and how they listen to the staff and walk nicely in pairs together.

They understand about road safety and explain how they wait to be told by a staff member that it is safe to cross the road before doing so.Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are well supported by staff, who understand and are able to meet their needs. Effective partnership working with parents, and well-thought-out settling-in procedures, helps to ensure staff are well informed and have the required knowledge and skills.

Children enjoy the sensory activities on offer and ask if they can get some water to add to the sand to make sandcastles. Staff accommodate this well and also provide dry sand for those that do not wish to take part in this, accommodating all of the children's wishes.On the walk back from school, children enjoy talking with staff about their school day and what they can see in the environment.

They observe how more leaves are starting to fall from the trees and talk about how they have changed in colour over the recent weeks. They stop to watch roofers fixing a chimney and staff talk to the children about what they can see and the safety equipment they are wearing. This helps them to learn more about the world around them.

Staff plan specific activities relevant to the time of year, these include activities around road safety on darker evenings, and how to stay safe on bonfire night and around fireworks. This helps children to learn about risk and how they can keep themselves safe.Parents report that they feel well informed about how their children spend their time in the club.

They explain how key information is shared with them and this helps to support continuity in the children's care and development.There are safe recruitment procedures in place to employ new staff and all relevant checks are undertaken to ensure they are suitable to work with children. All required documentation is in place and contains the necessary detail.

Staff understand their roles and responsibilities around safeguarding and undertake training to keep their knowledge current.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

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