Scope and balance
Most centres had a curriculum which provided good or very good programmes across the five key aspects of children's development and learning as described in national advice1.
Just over 20% of centres did not yet provide a balanced curriculum.
See Box 4 for the five key aspects.
|
Box 4. The 5 key aspects:
|
Planning
The quality of planning for children's development varied across the centres. Some 55% of centres in the voluntary and private sectors and 30% in the local authority sector were considered to have fair or unsatisfactory planning procedures.
Weak planning was generally not informed by the five key aspects or by the outcomes of assessment of children's progress.
See Box 5 for development needs noted during inspections.
|
Box 5. Good planning needs to:
|
Emotional, personal and social development
The programmes for emotional, personal and social development were very good or good across all centres.
Staff created welcoming and secure environments for the children. They used praise regularly and effectively and took good account of individual needs. Most centres provided good opportunities for children to develop personal and social skills as individuals and with each other.
Some key features of good programmes in emotional, personal and social development are summarised in Box 6.
|
Box 6. Good programmes for emotional, personal and social development provided opportunities for children to:
|
Communication and language
Overall, most centres provided good or very good programmes for communication and language. Some of the centres inspected communicated through the medium of Gaelic. Others provided for children from various cultures for whom English was an additional language. A very small number of centres offered opportunities for children to learn French.
Good practice features are summarised in Box 7.
|
Box 7. Good practice features in communication and language:
|
Where weaknesses were noted centres were advised to provide more opportunities for children to listen and to talk for different purposes. In some centres the range of available books was too narrow and not enough attention was paid to how they could be enjoyed by children.
Knowledge and understanding of the world
Most centres provided good or very good programmes for knowledge and understanding of the world.
Many centres made good use of their local communities to develop this programme by taking children to places of interest and inviting people to visit the group. Daily routines and activities were often used to develop children's understanding of time and change. Good attention was given in most centres to developing children's early mathematical skills.
A common weakness found in programmes was a lack of opportunity for children to solve problems and to develop skills in observing and investigating.
Box 8 summarises features of good practice.
|
Box 8. Good practice features in knowledge and understanding of the world:
|
Expressive and aesthetic development
The majority of centres were providing good or very good programmes in expressive and aesthetic development.
Overall, however, the programmes in some 30% of centres were only fair. This was due largely to the limited opportunities available to children to express their own thoughts and feelings freely. Centres needed to improve programmes through extending experiences in creative art and craft, developing role-play and drama, and providing more opportunities for music making and singing.
This advice is summarised in Box 9.
|
Box 9. Development needs in expressive and aesthetic development are:
|
Physical development and movement
The programmes in physical development were good or very good in the majority of centres.
Overall improvement was needed in about 25% of all centres. This was generally linked to a lack of opportunity for regular energetic play. Sometimes this was due to inappropriate planning of activities or the need for more imaginative use of available space but in some cases the available accommodation limited the opportunities for development. A few centres included swimming in their programmes.
Development needs noted are summarised in Box 10.
|
Box 10. Development needs in physical development and movement include:
|
Staff/child interaction
In most centres the quality of interactions between staff and children was good or very good.
Features of good practice are summarised in Box 11.
|
Box 11. Good practice features in staff/child interaction:
|
Where weaknesses were found in centres it was generally found that while staff may have had good relationships with children they did not know when and how to intervene appropriately to extend their learning. They did not stimulate or develop opportunities and often did not provide suitable challenge for the needs of individual children.
Children's involvement in their learning
In most centres the involvement of children in their learning was good or very good.
Children responded well to the different opportunities available to them. They were able to develop skills and understanding acquired from previous experience. They were motivated to remain absorbed in activities for prolonged periods of time.
In centres considered fair or unsatisfactory children showed lack of involvement by flitting between activities without any sustained engagement. This was often linked to the need for staff to improve skills in interaction and to provide more specifically for differing stages of development.
Key features of involvement in learning are summarised in Box 12.
|
Box 12. Key features of children's involvement in learning:
|
Play
Opportunities for children to learn through play were varied across the centres. In some 65% of voluntary centres, 70% of private centres and 90% of local authority centres learning through play was considered good or very good.
Features of good practice are summarised in Box 13.
|
Box 13. Good practice features in provision of play:
|
Where development was still needed centres required to improve the balance of activities across the five key aspects and between those that were adult-led or chosen by the children themselves. In some centres the length of sessions was less than the recommended 2.5 hours and this often had a limiting effect on provision for play.
Support for children
The number of centres inspected which had children with special educational needs was small. Within that number the majority made good or very good provision for children with special educational needs.
In some 30% of centres provision was fair or unsatisfactory. In some cases staff lacked expertise and needed to form links with appropriate agencies for support and advice.
Features of good practice are summarised in Box 14.
|
Box 14. Good practice features in support for children:
|
Assessment and recording
Overall, assessment and recording procedures were fair or unsatisfactory in just under a half of all centres. Procedures were considered fair or unsatisfactory in 55% of voluntary centres and in 40% of private and local authority centres
Development needs are summarised in Box 15.
|
Box 15. Development needs in assessment and recording:
|
Centres whose practice was considered good or very good had put in place procedures which generally involved all staff in observing and recording significant indicators of children's progress against the expected learning opportunities set out in the five key aspects. They collated samples of children's work to support this and used the information to guide planning and to provide written reports for parents and schools.
Parents
Relationships with parents were good or very good in almost all centres.
Almost all centres provided parents with helpful information usually in the form of a handbook, a welcome pack or displays on notice boards. This information was mainly administrative in nature but many centres were beginning to give parents good quality information about the curriculum and related policies. Some centres provided written reports on individual children's progress. Almost all centres made daily contact with parents to share information about the children's well-being. Most centres had formalised policies on aspects of care and welfare which were available to parents.
A minority of centres had consulted parents in quality assurance exercises.
In voluntary groups some parents took on significant responsibilities as committee members for the overall management of the group.
Features of good practice are summarised in Box 16.
|
Box 16. Features of good relationships with parents were as follows:
|
Relationships with other schools, agencies and the community
Overall, most centres were good or very good at developing links with other schools, professional agencies and their local communities. In voluntary and private centres some 80% had good or very good links. Local authority centres were considered good or very good in 95% of those inspected.
Further development was needed in links between pre-school centres and related primary schools. In many cases this had been initiated by the pre-school centres. The main features of good practice in establishing close links with school are identified in Box 17.
|
Box 17. Effective links with other schools were developed through:
|
Agency links were often formed when centres had children with special needs. These included links with health visitors, speech therapists, social workers or educational psychologists. Local authority centres tended traditionally to have more established links with a range of professional agencies. In line with partnership agreements, local authorities were developing links with voluntary and private centres. Most voluntary and private centres had links with umbrella organisations.
Examples of these organisations are listed in Box 18.
|
Box 18. Examples of some of the umbrella organisations with whom centres were linked:
|
Links with the local community were often developed as part of the planning for the curriculum. Visitors from different parts of the community made regular contributions to different activities. In addition, many communities were supportive of the fundraising efforts of voluntary groups.
Box 19 gives a sample list of visitors to the centres.
|
Box 19. Examples of some of the visitors to pre-school centres:
|