Ofsted
Our mission at Sandcastles is that ‘We aim for children to leave Sandcastles as confident, independent thinkers with high self-esteem, ready for the next stage of their learning journey.’ We are extremely confident that we remain outstanding in achieving this and outstanding at every stage along the way.
Our latest inspection was carried out by one inspector over 6 hours on the day of Storm Eunice when, for safety, our risk assessment deemed much of our garden areas could not be used.
You will see that the paragraphs under ‘What it is like to attend this early years setting’, simply detail a few observations the inspector made during her few hours with us. If you would like to know what it’s really like here, we highly recommend that you come to see for yourself, have a look through our website and visit us on Instagram.
There were 2 recommendations made. One within our baby suite whereby the inspector felt that the changing of nappies interrupted the children’s learning. She would like for our practitioners to interact in the child’s play prior to changing their nappies. Our practitioners do this, if it is appropriate, depending on the play the child is engaged in and the urgency for a clean nappy!
The other recommendation was within our toddler suite. The children in this room are generally 2 years of age. The inspector wanted to see the more able children having a go at self-serving their lunches as they do in our pre-school room. Children who are due to transition to our pre-school room do start to self-serve. There were no children due to transition present on the day of the inspection.
Sandcastles has always known that children learn best through play and to that end all the children benefit from extremely enabling environments both inside and out that allow them free access to the wide range of resources available. Our dedicated staffing team follow the children’s interests to ensure their interactions are purposeful and help to support and develop play / learning. The care, safety and wellbeing of the children is of paramount importance and, whilst the routines have been developed to ensure interruptions are kept to an absolute minimum, there are times throughout each day that interruptions to their play must and do happen. These interruptions also allow children to develop school readiness where the interruptions steadily increase.
Below are extracts taken from feedback received from The Head of Early Years at one of our local schools:
‘I have been lucky enough to have the children who attended Sandcastles in my class. This year and in previous years I would say that Sandcastles children are more often more independent learners/listeners ………. ‘ ‘They have all settled well and respond well to the familiar routine of being in a setting. I think this comes down to the emphasis that you put on listening, independence and having a familiar routine.’
‘Academically speaking, I would say that the children have come into school working within age related expectations (taking into consideration lock down and the change of expectation in the curriculum too). The jolly phonics that you teach them has given them a good foundation to begin more formal phonics sessions.’ It goes on to talk about most of the Sandcastles children being able to write their name which they find helps with confidence in writing.
The feedback highlights the main independence that helps with transition as:
being able to put on coats
understanding familiar routines
following simple one or two part instructions
resilience to ‘have a go’
separating from their main carer
listening and attention.
These aspects are all built into our ethos and room aspirations thereby helping to ensure that children do indeed, ‘leave Sandcastles as confident, independent thinkers with high self-esteem, ready for the next stage of their learning journey.’