Leading the way to new strategies

Information about the setting

Open Door Family Centre is registered to care for 19 children aged from two to four years old at any one time.  Flying Start sessions for two-year-old children run from 9.00 am to 11.30 am five mornings a week during the term time and for two weeks during the summer holidays.   Foundation phase sessions for three-year-old children run from 12.30pm to 3.00pm from Monday to Thursday each week.

The setting is on the Oldford site of Welshpool Church in Wales School in Powys.  The area has significant levels of deprivation.  A minority of children are learning English as an additional language.  Open Door Family Centre was established originally as a parent and toddler group in 1993 by a group of volunteers and has developed from this.  It has a loving and nurturing ethos and aims to provide effective opportunities for children to play and learn in a happy and secure environment.  

Context and background to the effective or innovative practice

Open Door Family Centre required monitoring by Estyn after its inspection in 2013.  Following a change of management, new leaders were eager for good advice and support to help them move forward.  They made the most of opportunities and suggestions offered by Early Years Wales, childcare business support, foundation phase and flying start advisory teachers.  Leaders worked together successfully to establish clear managerial roles and strategies.  They shared a strong vision effectively with all practitioners, and this created a positive ethos in the setting.  As a result, all staff understand their roles and responsibilities, and work together well with the trustees to achieve the setting’s goals and bring about sustained improvements.

Description of nature of strategy or activity

Managers and trustees have established exemplary processes and procedures to ensure that the setting is safe, runs efficiently, meets all national minimum standards and often exceeds these.  They have established simple, efficient and effective processes that maintain their focus on important procedures consistently and successfully.  These include simple checklists to ensure that they review policies and renew certificates in a timely manner.  There is a well-established timetable for supervision and appraisal meetings.  Leaders use these meetings successfully to identify practitioners’ strengths, and to support them in their professional development effectively.  They set useful development targets that help motivate practitioners, support their wellbeing and lead to improvements in the setting’s work.  Leaders keep a useful overview of training in a simple format that includes an evaluation of the impact on standards in the setting.  They cascade the main messages from training to all practitioners, so that it has maximum impact on the setting’s work.  Trustees play a vital and active role in the setting.  For example, they ensure that there is an effective focus on maintaining high standards of safeguarding in the setting.  Good communication is highly valued.  There are monthly team meetings that involve all practitioners in bringing about improvements successfully.  Leaders use a simple but highly effective format to record actions from the meetings that allows them to monitor progress regularly.  

Leaders use resources highly effectively to meet children’s needs and promote high standards of learning and wellbeing.  They use their professional understanding and the skills they develop in training highly effectively to choose new resources wisely.  For example, recently, they invested in ‘real’ objects for the home corner to provide a meaningful context for children’s play.

What impact has this work had on provision and children’s standards?

Establishing simple and highly effective processes and procedures, and following these consistently, ensures that the setting is safe and secure, that practitioners develop well professionally and enjoy being part of a strong team, and that children benefit form high quality provision that is regularly evaluated and refined.  This leads to high standards of learning and wellbeing in the setting.  

How have you shared your good practice?

Open Doors Family Centre uses social media to share its good practice and the local authority disseminates good practice information to other settings such as through networking events.