ANNUAL REPORT
Review of the Centre - September 2006 to September 2007
CONTENTS
8) Dissemination Activities and Research
Throughout the last year the Centre has continued to appraise, practice and improve, as evidenced through the 'Outstanding' judgements given by OfSTED to both the nursery 'school' and separately, day-care (Neighbourhood Nursery). Through the 'school improvement partnership' monitoring process, this judgement has been re-enforced over the year.
There have also been significant developments and continued achievements within the family support and health related services and activities, but also alas, short term funding casualties; the 'Citizen Advice Bureau benefits advisor' sessions and the councellor sessions could no longer be sustained, representing a significant loss to the families who use the Centre. Both these services were well used and had an impact on the families who sought their help, but unfortunately the Sure Start grant funding was no longer available to support these projects.
The Centre staff have worked incredibly hard over the last year, both in terms of team work and development of 'practice' and in consistently putting children and families at the heart of everything they do. The teams and the Centre's leaderdhip team and Governing Body should feel very proud of their achievements.
The Nursery staff have worked very hard throughout the year to ensure that the children have experienced a rich, exciting and very importantly, fun learning environment, within the ethos of continued parental involvement. With excellent leadership from Margaret and Anne the improvement priorities have all been met, as follows;
The focus on mathematics bore fruit as the emphasis on 'number' could be seen clearly operating throughout the curriculum, with assessments demonstrating that children, particularly in their second term were more able to recognise and write numbers. Further, practioner's confidence grew in this area and many parents accessed the 'Maths is Magic' family learning courses, many expressing their own growth in confidence about their maths ability, as a result.
A new and more robust assessment, tracking and monitoring system was designed and introduced and has already proved to be very effective, with all the staff now familiar with its use and contributing fully to data collection. The monitoring procedures are in place and ready to be implemented in the autumn term.
Assessment tracking data shows that the children make significant progress in all areas of their learning, with many reaching the foundation stage targets and some exceeding them (children are expected to reach the Foundation stage targets by the time they are 6 years old). Children who may have additional needs are identified and planned interventions put in place quickly, in order for them to maximise their enjoyment of learning and their whole nursery experience.
Child protection training was updated for all staff across the Centre and the cross Centre procedures and reporting mechanisms were strengthened. Practitioners continue to introduce 'keep safe' topics into 'circle' and key group time sessions.
There appears to be an increasing number of children with both common and rarer allergies attending the Centre, it is therefore important that everyone involved with the children have a good understanding of the implications of these. For this reason systems for ensuring allergies and dietary requirements were reviewed and improvements implemented, with all staff being made aware of them.
Parental evaluation surveys showed very high satisfaction rates, with the lowest score (albeit less than 1%) commenting that home/nursery communication could be improved. This prompted a review of how we communicate nursery information and improvements were made via the introduction of home/nursery bags and also ensuring that we give parents plenty of notice about activities/changes. The majority of parents have purchased a home/school bag and are positive about their use. However, we are mindful of the fact that we need to continually ensure that we are doing all we can to communicate effectively with all parents/carers, particularly those who for different reasons find written communication difficult.
Throughout 2006/07 activities have taken place which aimed to involve parents/carers in their children's learning and celebrate their achievements as well as having fun together, for example, the 2006/07 year has seen:
1) Celebration Assemblies and enrichment days, attended by 98% of families.
2) Cannon Hall farm trip, 95% of children accompanied by a parent/carer.
3) Increased number of parents sharing stories with children before sessions start.
4) Open days/evenings and drop in sessions for new children, Graduation ceremonies.
5) Well attended family learning activities, FEET, Maths is Magic, Active Tots, Playing with Language.
Generally, the children in nursery have been enjoying planting, growing and eating their own produce, and the gardens are bursting with tomatoes, potatoes, beans, peas, onions, cauliflowers and lettuce. We also have a wonderful range of herbs and flowers. which are lovingly, if a little erratically tended by the children! Warburtons bakery contributed to our garden by funding a selection of gardening tools and watering cans, they also spent a day at the Centre baking hedgehog bread with the children! Parents and children helped to plant crocus bulbs in Manygates Park at the end of 2006 and also at this time harvested the results of our first sojourn into gardening - giant pumpkins and gouds, these were viewed by the children as being 'amazing'!
The family support team benefited from office improvements during this period, with Mark now enjoying his own domain, these changes provide a more spacious, secure and better laid out office, which meet health and safety standards.
Partnership work went from strength to strength during the year. The health visitor led 'well baby clinic' moved to the Centre from the GP Surgery and is combined with a Centre led 'Weigh & Play' session, both are very well attended (450 representing the highest number of attendees during the month of June) and attract parents and their baby's from a wide area. Rachel who runs the W & P session has now formulated a rolling programme of health and safety related topics, with the first promotions being Stopping Smoking (getting ready for the ban), Sun care and dental care, at which the visiting dental practioner was successful in encouraging 10 families to sign their children up to a dentist. Other topics in the planning include 'healthy eating' and also a visit from the fire service who will talk about firework safety. Running the well baby clinic from the Centre has meant that many parents are using the Centre who may not have been aware of its services, and it has attracted a number of young parents, who have put their children's names down for nursery.
Health partnerships have also been enhanced by a link Health Vistor who is a regular visitor to both the Nursery and Family Support team. Two 'Primary Care Trust' funded Health Trainers, are also now based at the Centre. These links enable closer working together, two way referrals and sign posting to services, for the benefit of families. Further, this collaboration has resulted in Kim (SEN group funded family worker) and Belinda (Link HV) developing a more parent friendly multi-agency referral process for children who have social communication difficulties, this has received interest from a number of agencies who are in the process of assessing whether thay want to adopt it.
Unfortunately the Shaw Trust project (supporting parents on disability benefits, back to work) did not work out well and the service was underused, forcing the workers to return the service to their town centre base.
During 2006/7 a FS improvement plan priority was to improve the processing of referrals and also the quality of leaflets and other documentation. This has been successfully undertaken with the FS and administrative team working closely together to produce much more professional and 'corporate' documentation and a more efficient and effective referral response process, which is now supported electronically, thanks to the skills of Liz and the admin team.
The FS team have been called upon to share their skills and expertise with a growing number of agencies and organisations this year. (See dissemination activities).
In line with the Nursery plans there has been a strengthening of communication between the teams, particularly in relation to child protection / concerns, processes have now been put in place to ensure more consistent sharing of any concerns or support issues.
Mark continues to work effectively with male carers (18% of the total families who acccess individual support are Dads) additionally, the Dad's group has now moved from the light waves centre in Wakefield to the Castle Centre and the membership is growing. There is a continuous need to ensure that we are meeting the needs of both mothers and fathers across the Centre.
Two Webster Stratton groups have run during this period, with 14 families completing the whole programme.
The SPACE group (support group for parents who have children with SCD) continues to be popular, with 25 parents attending over the year. Kim has worked with Acorn Children's Centre to set up a SPACE group for the east of the district, this now has 15 parents attending.
Angie has been developing her work with parents who have learning difficulties and has made contact with an organisation call 'CHANGE' who, as part of their work, aim to make mainstream parenting publications more accessible to people with a learning difficulty. Regional groups of parents meet to assist CHANGE in their work and Angie has now got a group of parents together to represent our area and they have already made suggestions that are being taken on board by CHANGE.
Diane continues both her group and individual work on the traveller site and the project has been used as an example of good practice on the Every Child Matters web-site.
The FS team have been working with a number of parents in the Hall Green area who had no parent/child activities available to them, in response to this the FS team worked with local groups to provide and support an inclusive parent & toddler group. This has been very well received and parents took on the running of it during the summer whilst the Centre workers were busy running the holiday clubs.
Michelle and Nichola continue to develop the Snowdrop project, which receives a great deal of attention from practitioners across the district, who insist that a project such as this is needed across Wakefield. Unfortunately, both the Traveller and Snowdrop projects are subject to short term funding and efforts to secure a commitment to long term funding have so far not been met with success.
Sarah and Kim have undertaken training with a view to starting a support group for children who have a sibling with additional needs; a group is planned for the autumn.
The family support team have worked with 84 families (151 individuals) during the period covered by this report, with this work having a significant impact on the families.
The 2007 Holiday Scheme was once again a huge success, with over 50 children attending over the three weeks duration. The children enjoyed days at the Scout camp hunting for bugs and generally making the best of the great outdoors. Emma Wallis, a community artist came and worked with the children to produce great artwork culminating in a giant collage, which takes pride of palce in the reception area of the Sandal Building. The Wakefield Express came and photographed the children with their collage.
Other activities/services during 2006/7 (not already mentioned in body of the report) for families, include:
* Advertising of daily 'hot jobs' from the Centre which are emailed to us from Job Centre Plus.
* 'Bosom Buddies' peer support for breastfeeding groups
* 0 to 18 months group, infant massage and baby talk groups.
* Weekly Dads group.
* Credit Union collection point.
* Computers are available for parents to use, however take up is not very high.
* Weekly Homestart parent and toddler group.
* Fortnightly Down's Syndrome supprt group (run by parents)
* Parent's Library and book exchange.
* Woodchips (run by parents) weekly group for children, with an environmental focus.
* Childminders also meet on a weekly basis at the Centre.
An Open day for families on the 5th June brought together a range of organisations, including, WD Housing, Shaw Trust, Credit Union, 5 a day, CIS and oral hygiene. We were able to give away toothbrushes and toothpaste donated by Asda & Colgate and also sell carbon monoxide detectors. There were a variety of creative activities available for children and lots of tasty and healthy food for people to try.
Day Care (Neighbourhood Nursery)
The uptake of children's places continues to grow, boosted by the 'Outstanding OfSTED inspection in January. A system has now been put in place by Tracy to project forward the availability of places for a year and this allows her to identify 'gaps' and find ways of filling them. However, sustainability is still ans issue and even if we operate at full capacity every day we may still only break even. This is a national problem, particularly with the Neighbourhood Nursery initiative. No decision has yet been made in relation to the LA's plans regarding our childcare nursery and the change from a centrally managed service to full management from the Castle Centre.
The 3 to 5 years day care team are now making full use of the creche room due to concerns that the children were moving between the rooms too frequently and it was felt that they needed a smaller more 'homely' type base to identify with. Information is currently being distributed to parents and the new system will be fully implemented in September. A new name has been chosen for thier room - The Den!
The Baby Garden is now complete, and has its own little decked and grassed area with raised planted beds, during the summer holidays we had a covered sand pit installed, all we need now is some sunshine!
The 0 to 3's team have developed very calm sensory areas in their rooms and introduced more heuristic play; these are clearly enjoyed by the children.
Other developments in day care during the year were the start of home visits prior to admission, the formulation of new leaflets, and the improvement of planning and children's files. The work involved in the Quality Assurance Scheme should be completed by December.
Tracy and the day care team have done extremely well to establish the service and be seen as 'Outstanding' in what is actually a very short period of time.
Thanks to Children's Centre funding we have now been able to make the admin posts permanent. Julia (Premises and Finance Officer & Team Leader) and her team have worked very hard this year to establish a cohesive and efficient service, with improvements across all areas of administration, e.g. improved 'corporate' documentation and literature, which is a factor in successful marketing, improved data collection and analysis, clearer financial systems and management and generally more organised and professional administration processes.
Each member of staff have clearly defined roles which match their strengths, however they all also take time to understand the general office functions in order to provide a streamlined service.
The Centre's web site also went live during 06/07.
The Centre has been 'volunteered' to undertake the statutory 'Financial Management in Schools Standard' (FMSiS) process, eventually all schools must complete this. A 'toolkit' is provided which the governors and leadership team must work through, which will then be judged against the standard. In addition we have volunteered to pilot the replacement Schools Finance Sytstem (FIS) with the new AGRESSO package and we are moving over to the new replacement for the Schools Admin System (SAS) to INTEGRIS.
Work is proceeding on developing a 'customer care' standard for the Centre.
A great deal of development has taken place in the children's play areas. We have had two fantastic play houses installed (the village of Castle town) one of the houses has its own child sized allotment and the other a mini orchard with 2 apple trees and a pear tree; the apple trees have borne fruit this year.
The herb garden and path have been extended and we now have a large pavillion which provides shelter and shade throughout the year. Raised beds have been installed and planted up against the Bridge wall and the family support office wall (Sandal building) in order to provide a more attractive view; additionally we have had two new sand boxes installed.
The gardeners have put up a new fence in the nursery garden in order to section off different areas, as supervision of the the entire area can be difficult when staff numbers are limited.
The change from LA maintenance contract to a private company has proved to be successful; as well as the grounds and planting areas being cared for to a very high standard, they are able to save us money on making, sourcing and installing equipment.
In line with our new environmental priorities we have had a water butt installed, water saving devices installed in toilets and paper recycling bins distributed across the Centre. We are also looking at other ways to be sustainable both indoors and out, this is reflected in our next 5 year priorities. We have purchased a low energy tumble drier and the day care staff now has an external rotary drier (this will be useful when it stops raining!). A new ramp to the Bridge was completed in May, which now provides disabled access.
A security card system has been installed to both buildings, improving security across the campus.
The Sandal building reception area was reburbished at the same time as the family support offices, and a similar glass reception window has also been installed in the Castle building and an entry phone installed.
The drains have been causing a lot of problems and numerous visits from environment workers had not solved the problem, however a problem was eventually discovered with the sewage pump, which is now working as it should be. (The pump apparently could not cope with the amount of nappies being put down the toilet, signs have been put up urging peolple to use the bins provided.)
Kath and her team have continued to be very commited to keeping the Centre, both inside and out in tip top condition.
Recently we have had two separate incidents of people trying to pinch the copper earth straps and lead flashing from the roof. The police were called and said that it is currently happening widely across Wakefield. We have now had the roof repaired.
The main kitchen has been re-organised, a phone installed and an additional convection oven provided as the previous configurartion was not the most practical for the size of the room.
Sadly at the end of this school year Margaret Hague left to take up position as Head of Centre at the Arnold Children's Centre in Rotherham, we wish her every success and will miss the very significant contributions she made whilst Deputy Head of this Centre. A new Deputy, Joanne Whyte was appointed to replace Margaret in July. Joanne is currently 'area special educational needs co-ordinator' in Wakefield, with a wealth of early years teaching experience. We are looking forward to her starting in October.
Kate Fyfe (Nursery Teacher) left to join the Early Years Team as a Children's Centre teacher after a 9 year stint at the Castle. Kate was replaced by Anne Anderson who has played a big part in the Centre's development since it's early days; her own children attended nursery and she bacame a parent representative and a member of the Management Commitee, which then became the Governing Body and until her appointment, chaired the meetings. She has also been supply teacher for us off and on throughout the years and has run parent/child groups.
Jayne Townend left to take up a permanent post as school secretary at the Methodist School and we welcomed Jackie Corbishley into our admin team.
Karen Murtagh has joined us as Cook in Charge at the end of August following the decision to employ our own cook rather than use Kingswood, we are looking forward to working with her.
Two Health trainers, both strangely named Louise Edwards are now based at the Centre although they are employed by Community Health, who make a management payment to the Centre as part of the contract. They both seem to be enjoying sharing the family support office and promoting their service across the Centre.
Training and qualifications over the last school year include:
* Kathy Stevens obtained the NPQICL (National Qualification in Integrated Leadership).
* Tracy Slater has been accepted on the NPQICL for next year.
* Julia began working toward the CSBM (Certificate in School Business Management).
* Anne Anderson completed teacher mentoring training.
* Michelle Bradley is in her final year of a 3 year DipFW (Diploma in Family Work).
* Liz Hulme completed advanced database training.
* Gill Abbott completed her 3 year Foundation Degree (Day Care)
* Lisa Audsley and Sue Pierce are about to start working towards the Foundation Degree (Day Care).
All but one of the day care staff (who is currently working towards level 2) are now qualified to level 2 or 3.
Other training included:
Child Protection (whole Centre)
Attachment (how poor attachments impact on children's behaviour) whole Centre
White board training
Autism-interactive play
Working together to safeguard children
Working with adults with Mental health problems
Traveller Conference
Building self esteem - links to children's behaviour
Planning and assessment
Child well being model & CAF
Strengthening thinking and learning
Working with South Asian families
Sustainable leadership
Delivering a customer focussed service
Safer recruitment
Domestic Violence
Dissemination Activities & Research
We were contacted by the Young foundation earlier this year who had been given our details for a book they were compiling regarding organisations and working with communities. Anna Minton who is writing the book came out to see the Centre and learn about the work we do and will be including us in the book.
The NCSL also expressed interest in our work and came to the Centre to make a DVD, which was then shown, along with examples from 5 other settings, to an audience from Ofsted, NCSL, DFES and others, with a view to influencing their thinking around the importance of working with families to raise children's educational achievements.
We have also recently taken part in research being undertaken by both Warwick University and NCSL, one looking at 'Governance in integrated settings' and the other at 'trust and multi-agency working'
Dissemination activities have included:
* Michelle, Mark and Nichola - presentations and training on both attachment and behaviour to, childminders, health visitors, Children's centre's and schools.
* Mark - presentation to Children's Centre 'Celebration Day' - Centre's Holiday Scheme
* Kathy, co-facilitated - training for Heads and Integrated Centre Co-ordinators, Good practice in Supervision, facilitated a Development day for Acton pastures School and Children's centre staff, Training for CC staff - family support, and made a presentation to ASPECT - working together.
* Kim Presentation to Portage home visitors - interactive play, Workshop, Children's Centre staff - Working with families with children with autism, what are the barriers?, Training for early years practitioners - Developing play for children with social communication difficulties. Kim is also involved in the development of the LA's Autism Parenting Programme and she will be co-facilitating sessions when it is rolled out in the spring of 2008. She has also been asked to train Health Visitors on play for children with SCD.
* Diane - training on Traveller awareness to schools, Sure Start and Children's Centres.
* Tracy and Lisa - shared information with childminders on planning birth to three matters.
Policies reviewed/formulated this year:
* Revised Child Protection Policy to include new guidance on safer recruitment - issues around allergations agianst staff.
* All curriculum policies reviewed and revised.
* Formulated - Staff Safety and Security Policy
* Reviewed and revised Teacher's Performance Management Policy in line with new statutory requirements
* Reviewed and revised 'Whole Centre Policy'
* Amended Behaviour Policy
Pay Policy still to be formulated
Anne Anderson stepped down as Chair, after doing an excellent job; she is now doing an excellent job as nursery teacher! Dawn Sketchley took over and has been extremelly effective at motivating the members and getting everyone involved in the work of the Centre. I am very optimistic about the growth and development of the Governing Body and feel that this year we have been a much more cohesive, pro-active GB, with more members enthusiastic about taking on roles and attending training.
Anita Farrell retired as a local authority member and Diane Drury took over.
We said a sad farewell to Rev Paul Glass who has left the area to work in Canterbury; he will be missed very much.
As already mentioned, Margaret Hague has left and so Joanne Whyte will be attending meetings from October. Noreen Malik has been nominated as Staff representative.
We were joined by, Rachel Day (Community Governor), Rachel Hodson (Parent Governor) and Mandy Scholey (Parent Governor).
The last year, like every other year has been a productive and exciting year. The staff team never fail to rise to challenges, respond to change and commit to pursuing the Centre aims of providing a high standard of practice in every service area. We look forward to the coming year and to continuing to positively contribute to the lives of children and families.
K Stevens