Church Street Day Nursery

🍂 Autumn has officially landed in the sensory room🍂

So far we have explored some filling and emptying activities using seeds, dry fruits, pine cones, logs and different woods. We have painted using different spices. We have looked at different autunm animals and matching them to their shadows and we have used our fine motor skills to wrap elastic bands around the pine cones!

We enjoyed making some shapes using everyday resources, natural materials and loose parts.

Heuristic Play is a great way for children to explore and discover lots of different textures and promote critical thinking and physical development.
🙂🙂🙂

⭐️⭐️⭐️Job Opportunities⭐️⭐️⭐️
We are on the look out for new and enthusiastic members to join our amazing team!

Positions available:
Nursery practitioner level 2 or above

These positions are for Full Time Nursery Practitioners with a Minimum of Level 2 qualification in Early Years. Competitive rates of pay and staff benefits including discounted childcare places.

Please call or email for an Application Form
Email:[email protected]
Phone:01952 250358

Dear parents / Carers
On the 17th April 2024, we had an unannounced Ofsted inspection, this was due to us having Three Ofsted complaints since our last inspection in 2021. We were given limited information regarding the complaints, however due to the dates these were made we were able to match the events with Safeguarding concerns within the child’s home environment that we had no option but to report to various support teams, this is the procedure every nursery should follow where there are physical and emotional signs that a child might be at risk, unless any complaints are deemed as an immediate concern involving the Nursery we are not informed until there are three which results in an unannounced inspection.
The inspectors on the day were part of the compliance team and came with an agenda to inspect three main areas, these were our special educational needs process (SEN) our safeguarding procedures and our recruitment process. All these areas were reported back to be good practice and the false complaints from former parents were proved to be unjust and malicious.
However, our overall grade for our inspection was ‘Requires improvement’.
On the day, the inspectors did not see key times of the day in each room and missed the main learning times, they stuck to a very rigid timetable and were not welcoming to us wanting to deviate from their schedule. They only spent 2 hours in the morning within rooms observing the staff and children, they missed all teacher led activities and refused to see a second joint observed activity planned with our management team.
The afternoon consisted of one inspector spending 2 hours in the office with the management team going through policies and procedures and the second inspector spending her time asking staff safeguarding questions and observing our SENCO assistant in a 1:1 session and going through the SEN paperwork.
No learning walk took place, an integral part of any Ofsted visit, the inspector said she didn’t want to disturb the children who were asleep and assured us that we could do a learning talk in the office instead, this did not give us the chance to do a full tour of the nursery and talk about all the amazing things we do at Church Street.
The staff did not feel comfortable in the Inspectors presence and felt they were patronising and condescending. This had a negative impact on the overall demeanour of the day.

As you can imagine, the whole team were deeply upset by this as we all know that the care we provide for our amazing children is certainly of higher standard than what the inspectors claim to have seen on the day.
Following on from the inspection, we were very disheartened by the outcome and felt it was not factual and did not reflect our best practice. We followed the complaints procedure and submitted a full complaint to Ofsted. This was fully supported by the Telford and Wrekin Early Years team who work closely with the Nursery, this is available for any parents who would like to read it, please speak to a member of the management team.
We always operate an open-door policy and are available to discuss any concerns or queries you might have. An investigation was done by Ofsted; however, this did not entail viewing our CCTV footage or talking to any of our team, some points within the inspection were proven to be untrue and overruled, but disappointedly the outcome has stayed the same and we will be reinspected within 9 – 12 months, at this point I think its important to inform you that we are amongst many Nurseries within the area to have been inspected in this way and receive this outcome.
The areas of improvement that were highlighted by the inspectors were mainly focused on our curriculum and learning intents for the children, as they felt they did not see consistent evidence of this within the 2 hours they spent in the rooms that morning. They also commented about wait times and transitions being too long for the children.
Since the Ofsted inspection we have reflected on some improvements and have adapted our Curriculum and simplified it, we have had team meetings to implement the changes we want to make and have looked at all of the rooms routines to ensure they are running as effectively as possible, we have introduced a rolling snack time, and this eliminates wait times and transition periods for the children and has been working well, this is also teaching children to take their turn, but also allows for interaction with activities so they always stay focused.
We are working closely with our Telford and Wrekin Early Years Childcare consultant, who is offering us more support, they will be coming in to conduct audits in every room, which will highlight our strengths and improvements that we can implement. She will then set us targets for those improvements; All of this will only strengthen the amazing care we already provide to the children.

The Ofsted inspectors gave us positive feedback regarding the bonds the staff have with the children and how attentive all staff were to the care needs of the children. We feel that the overall report does not reflect our nursery at all, we feel that all the children in our care are provided with positive learning opportunities, and all make amazing progress throughout their journey with us. We pride ourselves in being like a home from home environment, where we feel like a big extension to all our wonderful families, we get to know each child in the nursery as an individual and plan for constant development, we constantly get amazing feedback from our parents and have so much evidence to show the progression made, which wouldn’t happen if we did not communicate or plan effectively for the children.
We feel that the snapshot that Ofsted saw in a few hours is not enough for them to make a fully informed decision which can have such a negative affect on the whole nursery.
We hope that all our current and prospective parents that have visited us can see that this report is simply not a true and accurate reflection of the amazing things we do here at Church Street.
We are always willing to take on feedback and constantly improve, our main priority is to continue to give the children our best quality care, make them feel safe and secure and give them every opportunity to learn and thrive to become independent and confident by the time they leave us for their next big adventure to school.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all are amazing families for all your constant support and for trusting us to look after your children, without you our jobs wouldn’t be possible. We promise to look after your littles ones, keep them safe and help them become lifelong learners.
Please do not hesitate to speak to the management team if you would like any further information.
Kind regards
The Management Team
Church Street Day Nursery
01952 250358
[email protected]

🚀🪐Today in the sensory room, we had some cloud dough in the light table to create a space scene, we used some rockets, planets and astronauts to encourage some imaginative play!
We had lots of stars in the tray and some scoops to collect all the stars up, the children in the sensory room have had lots of fun exploring this today🪐🚀

😀Today we have celebrated National Numeracy Day,
All of the children have enjoyed joining in with number fun activities 😀

National numeracy day is an effective way to:

1️⃣Support maths learning at every age
2️⃣Support the maths curriculum with our Family Maths Toolkit
3️⃣Boost kids’ confidence with numbers
4️⃣Inspire a positive mindset towards numbers
5️⃣Make links between maths and activities kids love in everyday life
6️⃣Make links between maths and other areas of the curriculum
7️⃣Have fun with maths, regardless of ability

https://www.nationalnumeracy.org.uk

🎊🎊USING VISUAL AIDS🎊🎊

Why are visuals important?
-Visuals expand a child with limited language ability to interact with his/her surroundings. They can give children a sense of autonomy and allow them to make choices and express their own wants and needs. Visual aids also help children comprehend daily routines and have input in their activities that they want to do.

⭐️⭐️⭐️Job Opportunities⭐️⭐️⭐️
We are on the look out for new and enthusiastic members to join our amazing team!

Positions available:
Nursery practitioner level 2 or above
Room Leader Level 3 or above, previous leadership experience desirable.

These positions are for Full Time Nursery Practitioners with a Minimum of Level 2 qualification in Early Years. Competitive rates of pay and staff benefits including discounted childcare places.

Please call or email for an Application Form
Email:[email protected]
Phone:01952 250358

🙂Sensory room focus activities🙂

Space light table - Using a space tray insert and the jumping spring aliens we created a fun space scene for the children to explore, the jumping aliens are a great attention grabber for children working towards shared attention and showing interest in others. 👽

Compare bear house counting - the children were presented with 9 houses and a range of compare bears, it was there job to sort the correct amount of bears into each numbered house. 🐻

Under the sea number table- We used an under the sea mat, the number to Quantity orbeez fish and number 1-9 transparent numbers, the children enjoyed matching the correct number to the quantity fish 🐠

In the sensory room today, we have had fun exploring colour mixing, we used our light table water tray and the crayola bath drops to explore the colours changing in the water!!

Some of the children have been exploring different textures today will our new texture mats! They've used their finger and hands to rub and feel the different textures, the favourite has definitely been the fluffy soft ones!!

💃International dance day💃
We've all enjoyed dancing and grooving to a variety of music today, the children have had lots of fun making different shapes with their bodies.

🎶🎵The Pinocchio children have enjoyed dance day, they had lots of fun moving the parachute to the beat of the music 🎶🎵

Toddler room are going on a mini beast hunt this afternoon, in this edible tuff tray activity 🐞🐛🕷️

After Shannon and Gemma attending the SEN conference and participating in the task basket workshop, Shannon has now implemented this in nursery and the children have really enjoying taking part in these activities. This is a great way to enhance focus and attention skills, using visuals. See the top tips sheets below for more information on how you can implement these at home 💚💛💛🩷💜💙

🔻🟠🟪 Shannon has been busy making pictures with the shapes for the children to copy on the light table 🟪🟠🔻

🐢 our very own Mr Tiddles has been for a visit to the Peter Pan room today, he enjoyed all the attention and the children had a great time taking care of him 🐢

🎨🥕Our babies have enjoyed exploring painting with vegetables, making lots of marks and an occasional nibble 🥕🎨

🌈 Managers choice senco of the year, Shannon's trophy and certificate has arrived 🌈

Today we have all come to Nursery in our brightest colours to support and raise awareness of Autism. All of the children have taken part in some lovely colourful activities 🩷❤️🧡💛💚🩵💙💜🤍

🐇 Today the children in preschool have enjoyed exploring an messy Easter tuff tray and talking about all the different textures 🐇

🥳 Exciting news🥳

Following on from our attendance at the SEN early years conference in Birmingham,
We have had confirmation that our amazing SENCO Shannon, has been awarded managers choice SENCO of the year winner,
We are so proud of her hard work and dedication to the children with SEND within our setting 💙 🎉💐
A MASSIVE WELL DONE!

💛💙Today is world Down Syndrome day
Let's celebrate being unique!💛💙