Kids Planet Loughborough Road

Inclusion: Urgent improvement

Staff identify children who may require additional support with their learning. However, leaders are not ensuring that gaps in children's learning are closing quickly enough. Although additional funding is being used to provide some focused support for children, the impact of this on children's progress is not always evident. Children who may have special educational needs and/or disabilities are not receiving consistent care from their key person or other staff working with them. This results in staff not always being able to meet even the basic needs of the children. For example, staff working with younger children who speak English as an additional language are sometimes not aware of their name, the stage of their development or the language that they speak. The poor quality of teaching across the nursery impacts on disadvantaged or vulnerable children most severely. Children who need extra help are often left without support from staff to support their development. As a result, children are not making appropriate progress in all areas of learning.

Staff do liaise with other professionals effectively. This is particularly helpful for children and parents as they make arrangements for children to transition to school.

Curriculum and teaching: Urgent improvement

Leaders have not ensured that the curriculum is designed and implemented effectively. Interactions between staff and children are mainly limited to functional requests to sit still or fetch their shoes. For lengthy periods of time, staff do not interact with children as they play. This means that children are left to explore activities on their own. This severely limits the value that children gain from play in terms of their learning.

Some interactions with babies are more positive. Staff engage warmly with children and provide positive praise when children experiment with water play. However, this is not consistent across the nursery. Children are not receiving effective support for their communication and language development, particularly those who do not speak English as a first language. Leaders have not ensured that staff model language effectively for children and develop their vocabulary. Teaching from staff does not cover all areas of learning and is not sequenced effectively. Leaders are not ambitious enough for what they want children to learn. As a result, staff do not encourage children to develop their understanding in all areas of the curriculum.

Achievement: Urgent improvement

Children are not well prepared for the next stage in their learning. They are not developing the appropriate skills and understanding they will need for future success. For example, during story sessions, children are not able to demonstrate that they have the concentration needed even for a short story to be read to them. Some children wander off during story sessions and find it difficult to focus due to the distractions around them.

Children do not show that they have developed age-appropriate communication and language skills. They play in silence or wander between activities with little purpose. Children do not readily have conversations with staff to extend their communication and language skills. As a result, their speech is limited and reduced to brief comments in response to staff's requests.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Urgent improvement

Children are not supported to develop positive attitudes to learning. There are minimal interactions between staff and children. This leaves children struggling to stay focused on activities for any length of time. In addition, leaders' failure to manage the heat at the setting impacts on children's ability to learn. As a result of the hot weather, children struggle to concentrate and appear lethargic. Staff do, at times, show care and kindness towards children. They cuddle babies as they become tired and comfort them.

Leaders have implemented training for staff to use picture cards with all children and particularly those who may have special educational needs and/or disabilities to help them to understand the routines of the setting. This strategy is not, however, used consistently to support all children's development.

Attendance is well managed. Leaders understand the importance of regular attendance at the nursery for children's development. They recognise that children benefit from attending all sessions, in order to establish effective routines in preparation for starting school.

Children behave well and are generally kind to each other. During mealtimes, children sit and eat their food independently and show that they understand the routines of the nursery.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Urgent improvement

Leaders and staff do not promote children's wellbeing effectively. The inspection occurred during a period of a heatwave. Leaders had not implemented an effective and consistent system to identify any concerns about the temperature for children and to act upon these appropriately. Staff had not identified the risks to children from hot temperatures when sleeping. Leaders' failure to manage the heat at the setting effectively significantly impacts on children's wellbeing.

Risk assessment procedures for outside play are not effective. Arrangements in place to ensure children's safety when playing on large-scale equipment have not been shared with all staff. This means that risk assessment procedures are not consistently applied. During the inspection, some staff were new or not familiar with the risk assessment procedures of the nursery. The deployment of staff who do not fully understand their roles and responsibilities places children at risk.

Leadership and governance: Urgent improvement

Breaches of the statutory requirements in place to keep children safe are having a significant impact on children's learning and wellbeing. During the inspection, despite a number of leaders within the nursery organisation being present, effective decisions to manage the temperature for children were not made for a considerable period of time. Leaders had not made sure that staff were able to monitor the temperature of the areas used for children to play and sleep. Equipment used to measure room temperature was not suitable for this purpose. For example, leaders attempted to use an ear thermometer and a broken fridge probe to check the temperature in the downstairs rooms. This demonstrates leaders' failure to manage the temperature in the setting effectively. In addition to children's needs not being met, this also impacts negatively on staff's wellbeing and workload. Staff continue to support children in extreme heat despite raising their concerns with leaders about this.

Leaders have not ensured that the arrangements for staffing meet children's needs. Staff who do not know children well are asked to work with children without understanding their basic needs or stage of development. Decisions taken about staff deployment are not supporting children's wellbeing or learning. This impacts most on children who are disadvantaged or children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Leaders understand their role in identifying children who may need extra help, but have not made sure that all children are fully supported to achieve positive outcomes.

Staff are supported to access professional development opportunities. They receive regular supervision meetings with leaders, which help them to develop their practice further. Leaders have not, however, identified weaknesses in staff's interactions with children and the impact these have on children's learning.