Nursery Overview
Name The Apple Tree Private Day Nursery
Number of settings 1
Established 2012
Location Rochdale
Director Kate Howarth
Hopscotch early years consultancy comment ‘Each child is planned for individually and staff spend time getting to know children exceptionally well. This means that the provision is tailored for their individual needs.’
Director Kate Howarth says: ‘The best feedback we have ever had is on observations and it is down to how purposeful our observations are, due to us knowing exactly where children are at their starting points.’
Initial observations
At Apple Tree, home visits are offered to every family of every child, and the majority of parents take them up. These are attended by the room leader and a member of the management team.
Director Kate Howarth says, ‘If the child is settling in, you are not going to get a true reflection. If they are at home, you are freely observing. We will take a bag of resources with us – you get such a good sense. Often siblings join in so you see them with their family. And we can see mum and dad around the kitchen table.’
Using a copy of parents’ guidance ‘what to expect when’, they ask parents to give ‘a rough idea’ of what their child can do, or anything they think they are beginning to do.
This is then used to set loose baseline assessments, along with practitioner observations of the child in the first month at the setting.
Monitoring and quality control
Practitioners collect written observations, videos, photographs and observations related to pieces of work on a daily basis. There are two iPads in every room which are used in a variety of ways.
Ms Howarth says, ‘Some observations will be just eight to ten seconds of a child doing something. Sometimes we film group time sessions to look at the contributions children are making and how they are interacting.’ The idea is to ensure all observations meet a purpose and are relevant to the child’s current level of development.
Ms Howarth continues, ‘These observations are then used to first set an accurate “starting point” for our children and, in time, create a “learning journey” for each child in our care.’
Practitioners feed draft observations into the iConnect online learning journal tool, which the setting first started using 18 months ago. Then Ms Howarth looks at all the drafts each day to monitor what is being observed and how across the setting.
She says, ‘It is about making sure staff have the same standards. We can make a note and send back if a practitioner needs guidance, or publish it if we are happy. It can highlight where staff are struggling in some areas of learning over others. I have been able to pinpoint that and send them on the relevant training.’ These can be shared with parents.
‘Before we had the data it was difficult to monitor the files as we had 80 children on roll and all we could do was spot-check a few of them – it was nothing like as effective as the new system,’ Ms Howarth says.
Quality of planning
All staff are qualified to Level 3 or above, while training is done collectively so key facts are not misinterpreted. According to Ofsted’s last 2017 inspection, ‘Babies and children’s individual learning needs are superbly met. The well-qualified staff team accurately observe and assess children, in order to plan sharply focused activities for the next steps in their learning. This helps all children to make rapid progress.’
‘We make sure on a day-to-day basis we know what we are looking for,’ says Ms Howarth. Staff plan activities based on the needs of the children, putting children’s initials next to certain activities and know what they are working towards. ‘Staff know who their key families are and what they are interested in.
‘There is no timescale – it’s all child-led and at their rate of learning. We are setting targets at their pace. A lot of settings plan next steps termly. But children might have achieved their targets in the first three weeks, so what are they doing for the rest of the term?’ she adds.
Children from the pre-school room are involved in the planning. Each week, four children are selected for a ‘children’s council’ where they can talk about things they are interested in, including activities, resources and menus. As well as being good for turn-taking and self-esteem, Ms Howarth notes, children can stand up and speak about something, which is videoed by the other children and can then be shared with parents. Staff take back any ideas for themes – a recent one was Toy Story 4, which was expanded into all areas of learning with the help and imagination of the staff.
Babies are planned for individually (the baby room has children from birth to age two, and nine to 12 of them at any one time). This is because ‘they are developing so quickly’, Ms Howarth says. ‘At first it was difficult for the practitioners but now it is so normal for them. Once you have put the effort into the observations it makes the full cycle – observations, assessment and planning – easier.’
All groups have ‘key family time’ in the afternoons – which ranges from ten minutes or so to half an hour – where they go off in groups of key workers plus children for ‘quality time’. This has helped parents remember who their child’s key person is and practitioners to know their children ‘inside out’. ‘Parents love it,’ Ms Howarth adds.