Achieving outstanding - Highbury Lodge day nursery

Excelling in practice which fulfils the themes of the EYFS earned Highbury Lodge Day Nursery in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, an 'outstanding' last December - and also helped it to scoop Nursery World's 2010 Pre-school of the Year award.

As far as staff are concerned, its in-house nursery training programme, which had been running in all Childbase nurseries since 2006, more than paved the way for the EYFS. Named SOUND Foundations, this was originally the brainchild of Childbase founder Mike Thompson and was developed by early years consultants including Jennie Lindon, Sue Overton and speech and language therapist Terry Gilligan.

The five key elements of the former programme - Seek, Observe, Understand, Nurture and Decide - were given a positive response from Professor Ted Melhuish before the EYFS was officially launched in 2008.

Manager Claire Ovenden says, 'When the EYFS was introduced it was a case of saying, that is what we are already doing! Our in-house training had placed emphasis on areas such as child-led activities and working in partnership with parents, so we were in a strong position to take that forward.'

The inspection report highlights that a 'forward-thinking' approach to working with parents is well established. The report says, 'Cohesive methods of communication such as questionnaires, newsletters, suggestion boxes, play-and-stay sessions, together with the events planned to share children's learning journeys, all support the relationship.' Parents praised the staff's appreciation of individual children's needs, the way they eased their transitions between rooms and how they were always prepared to go 'the extra mile'.

The original SOUND Foundations' emphasis on speech and language has also been strengthened through current practice under the EYFS. Highbury Lodge was praised for its strategies to assist parents and children with English as an additional language, with its dual-language literature and one-to-one work with parents to help with pronunciation, script and spelling for labelling in the nursery.

UNDERSTANDING A WIDER WORLD

Based in a three-storey Victorian house, Highbury Lodge currently has a waiting list that extends to December 2011. The nursery is involved in its local community, with fund raising events for the charities it supports. These include Build a School for Africa and taking Christmas gift boxes to children in countries such as Romania.

The inspector praised these approaches for helping children to be aware of the wider world. The report states, 'This is a highly stimulating environment with exceptional organisation providing rich, varied and imaginative experiences that meet the needs of children exceedingly well, resulting in outstanding outcomes.'

Ms Ovenden reports that at the time of the inspection, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that the nursery's practice was outstanding. 'We all felt this was the case, so when the inspector turned up it was an opportunity to show off the nursery, which we relished,' she says. 'It was a very calm process and everyone approached it as just an ordinary day. Our inspector was very warm and friendly and put everyone at their ease.'

Ms Ovenden says that the inspector had read the nursery's Self-Evaluation Form online prior to the visit. 'This was really helpful because she had insight into what we were doing and could ask a lot of relevant questions. We were able to provide the evidence for the achievements we were claiming on the SEF.'

She adds, 'Any provision has to have a means of evaluation, and we find the SEF works very well. Each room here has its own SEF and improvement folder, so we have small groups of staff who are responsible for identifying how things might be done differently. SEF folders are kept in the rooms and the staff take ownership of them. In this way, everyone has an opportunity to contribute their own ideas.'

ALISON GOODRUM, DEPUTY MANAGER, says:

'The inspection was a very positive experience for us and as one of the first nurseries in the group to be inspected after the introduction of the EYFS, we were delighted to be awarded outstanding.

'The inspector was impressed with our garden and the fact that we have a committee of staff who are dedicated to developing it to its full potential. She noted in her report the designated areas of digging, cosy, sensory and physical, and how they are all enjoyed by the children.

'At the moment we are developing a winter garden and we have been asking parents for any building materials they can contribute. We've had a fantastic response and we've been given big items such as guttering, cardboard tubes and crates.

'We've also identified that parents want to know more about local schools, clubs and activities, and with this in mind we are introducing an information board in our foyer.

'Our parent forum meets four times a year and involves taking parents on a tour of the nursery. We write down comments and feed them back to the staff. The positive comments are tremendous for motivating individual staff members.'

SNAPSHOT

• Childbase took over Highbury Lodge Nursery in 2000 and currently offers 74 places at any one time. It has 135 children on roll. The nursery is open from 8am to 6pm and cares for children from six weeks to five years old.

• The award winning pre-school has 58 children and on average takes 30 children per session, over three rooms.

• The nursery receives funding for the free entitlement and offers a stretched entitlement over 52 weeks. It also offers wraparound care.

• Highbury Lodge employs 37 staff. Sixteen practitioners have NVQ3 while five hold NVQ2. The nursery has two unqualified practitioners who are being trained in-house and two Modern Apprentices, as well as bank staff, kitchen staff, lunch cover staff and an administrator.

• All meals and snacks are prepared on site by a dedicated catering team.

• Highbury Lodge is one of 38 nurseries in the south of England operated by Childbase.