Mulberry Garden After School Club

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

This provision meets requirements Older children arrive happy, chatting to staff and quickly engaging in their self-chosen activity. Staff collect young children from their classrooms, giving them time to talk to teachers and gain any information they need, as well as welcoming children and ensuring they arrive safely at the club.

Staff provide sensitive support and interaction with children new to the club. As a result, they learn where to find what they need, understand any safety boundaries and know how to take care of their personal needs. They quickly settle and feel secure, enabling them to busily engage in the good variety of activities, indoors and outdoors....

Staff provide good support for children to solve problems and persevere. For example, they demonstrate to young children how to use a tool to divide items which are stuck together, which later children recall and explain to others. Staff successfully help children to understand that there is more than one way to achieve something.

For example, when children say, 'I have done it wrong' staff comment, 'Not wrong, just your own way of doing it'. Children then do not give up but continue to develop their ideas, taking pride in their achievements.The manager focuses their planning on children making independent choices, feeling valued and gaining a sense of ownership and belonging.

Children are eager for staff to join their games and welcome their interactions. Staff show children respect as they listen and speak with them. Children comment on how much they enjoy attending the club and speak very positively about the staff.

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

Staff consider children's interests and ideas when planning, which means children are eager to participate and remain focused, supporting their skills for school effectively as they play. For example, young children confidently describe what they are making with small construction bricks and consider what they need to complete their ideas.Children have lots of opportunities to rest and read books or be active, enjoying exercise and team games while developing their skills.

For example, children explain how they lock their legs together to keep safe hanging upside down or enthusiastically engage in football. Children make good, healthy food choices, such as choosing fillings to make their own wraps. However, not all staff are consistent in giving all children good messages about hygiene.

Children have positive respectful relationships with the staff and each other, they enjoy their time at the setting and engage well. For example, staff use good resources to engage children in expressing emotions and understanding why they may feel a certain way. Children behave well, are polite and respond well to staff instructions.

Staff work together well as a team, providing good, calm role models for children. Children have a good understanding that boundaries are in place to keep them safe. For example, staff draw lines on the playground and explain to new children that they must not cross this, to ensure they remain within sight of staff.

Although on school grounds, staff risk assess the premises and provide good supervision.The manager evaluates the quality of the provision, seeking parents', staff, and children's feedback. She ensures staff understand their roles and responsibilities.

They have team meetings, where they focus on specific practices to embed their knowledge, such as behaviour management. The manager leads her team well. Through observation, she knows where to focus staff development, such as ensuring all staff extend children's thinking and vocabulary with good open-ended questions.

Partnerships with parents and the school are good. They work together to ensure staff can meet children's individual needs. Key staff, who children spend most time with, exchange important information with parents at the end of the day.

Parents comment on the nurturing staff and how their strong bonds with their children have made such a difference to their children's well-being.

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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