South Acton Childrens Centre

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this school?

Children arrive at this nursery with a smile on their face. They very much look forward to the fun and adventures that they will have each day.

Relationships between staff and children are strong.

Staff care deeply about each and every child and want the best for them. All adults, especially the key workers, get to know children very well. This enables them to be responsive to children's interests and make sure that their needs are fully understood and met.

Children are very well prepared for the next stage of their learning. Leaders and staff are aspirational for what all children can and do achieve here. This includes those with special educational needs an...d/or disabilities (SEND).

Children achieve consistently well across the curriculum. They benefit from excellent support from staff to build up their understanding and remember important ideas.

Leaders place partnerships with parents and carers at the centre of all of their work.

Staff keep parents very well informed on what their children are learning and how they can help. Regular workshops also provide further guidance on how parents can support their children's development at home. Leaders also involve parents in making valuable contributions to children's learning in the nursery.

For example, parents come into school to speak to children about their different cultural celebrations and to read stories to them.

What does the school do well and what does it need to do better?

Leaders have created an ambitious curriculum. Clear end goals have been identified and staff strive for all children to achieve these.

Staff are very responsive to children's interests. They use these as a springboard to create activities that not only hook children in and instil them with a sense of wonder, but also focus on the intended learning. Careful curriculum thinking, together with close attention to each child's needs and interests, ensures that children develop deep knowledge and skills across all areas of learning.

Children are taught to be curious, inquisitive and keen to learn. Concentration levels are high. Staff help children to engage in a multitude of activities with a sense of purpose.

Leaders and staff regularly check what children know and can do. They use the information effectively to close any gaps in understanding and plan what children should learn and practise next. This helps to ensure that children's understanding builds up very successfully.

The development of children's language and communication is an absolute priority. It is threaded throughout all aspects of the provision. Staff model and continually develop children's vocabulary.

No matter what the children are doing, staff get them to join in with discussions and express their ideas, often using the words that staff have modelled and emphasised.

Staff regularly read and share stories with children. They create exciting opportunities for children to bring the stories to life, such as using role play and props to retell the story.

Staff also teach children to listen out for sounds that they hear around them. Children practise this often, and this prepares them for learning phonics when they move to primary school. Family trips to the local library and workshops for parents further promote reading for pleasure.

Families like that they can borrow books from the nursery library to share at home.

Inclusion is at the heart of this nursery. Staff are highly skilled at supporting children with SEND, including those who attend the resourced provisions.

Children's needs are met through careful and precise adaptations to the planned learning. Leaders work closely with external agencies and families, so that children's needs are understood. They make sure that children with SEND receive the support that they need to flourish in their learning.

Staff have high expectations. They are experts at identifying when children need support to make the right choices. Every opportunity is used to reinforce and promote sharing, turn taking, listening to each other and respecting everyone.

Children are taught to value and appreciate diversity and difference.

Leaders plan activities, so that children get first-hand experiences of the wider world. They use real-life resources to support children to practise and apply what they have learned.

For instance, the outside area features a real car, where children can pretend to go on outings and immerse themselves in role play. Leaders and staff plan family learning trips to broaden children's experiences. This includes visits to places such as the local library and picnics in Hyde Park.

Leaders and governors share a very strong commitment to staff professional development. This results in a highly skilled workforce and a deep understanding of how young children learn. Leaders and staff are continually reviewing and evolving what they do.

They are always striving to build on existing strong practice to make it even better.

Staff are proud to work here and feel that leaders are very considerate of their well-being and workload.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

There is a vigilant culture of safeguarding. Leaders and staff have regular training to ensure that they know what to look out for if a child may be at risk of harm. There are clear reporting and monitoring procedures, and leaders oversight of concerns is strong.

Leaders work with a range of other agencies to get the right help for families as early as possible.Children are explicitly taught to identify and name different emotions. For example, 'emotion stations' support children with strategies to use when they are feeling different emotions and to speak up if they feel worried.

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