Overton

Copyright Montessori St. Nicholas: Final Report Form B2 January 2015 Page 1
Montessori Evaluation and Accreditation Board
School Accreditation
This report is prepared following two accreditation visits made on behalf of the
Montessori Evaluation and Accreditation Board. It considers how far the school
follows the criteria set out in “The Guide to the EYFS in Montessori Settings”
(2012/14). The second visit sought to assess the progress made on the
recommendations set out in the report from the first visit as well as any further
findings made during the second visit.
The report does not address the standards and quality issues which are the
responsibility of the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) which reports
separately. Also the report does not provide any assessment of financial aspects of
the school.
Overton Children’s House
St. Luke’s Hall, 49-55 Winchester Street, Overton,
Hampshire RG25 3HT
Date of previous MEAB accreditation: November 2012
Date of first re-accreditation visit: 3 March 2016
Date of second re-accreditation visit: 17 May 2016
This accreditation report relates to the provision for children aged 2 to 5 years.
Description of the nursery:
Overton Children’s House is a small rural setting serving both the local and wider
community. The nursery is a ‘pack away’ setting based in a community centre. It has
one large hall, a sizeable lobby, a storage room, and a securely enclosed outdoor play
space with a grassed area, patio, shed and an area for digging and planting. The
nursery has sole use of the premises during its opening hours.
The nursery can accommodate up to 25 children on a daily basis and is one of two
settings that make up The Children’s House (Hampshire) group; the nursery was
established by its current owner in 2011. It is open from Monday to Thursday during
term times, offering morning and afternoon sessions from 09.00 to 12.30 and 12.30 to
15.00; there is no afternoon session on Wednesdays. Children can attend nursery for
the full day, for which they bring a packed lunch from home. At the time of the second
visit there were 18 children on the nursery roll; 11 children attended the morning
session, with seven staying for the full day, supported by three staff members, one
student teacher and a volunteer.

The Children’s House (Hampshire) group has a staff team of ten including the owner,
who holds a Montessori Foundation Degree and shares her time between the two
settings. There are four staff members based at Overton Children’s House, including a
leader who acts as the owner’s deputy when she is not present. The leader and one
other member of staff hold Montessori diplomas. Two assistant teachers make up the
team. The nursery mentors a student on teaching practice from the Montessori Centre
International and has a long serving assistant teacher who acts as bank staff.
The team has experience of working with children with additional educational needs
and/or disabilities and English as an additional language, and they receive training,
support and advice from the local authority.
Summary
The owner and staff team at Overton Children’s House demonstrate a passionate
commitment to offering children a rewarding and stimulating early years experience
which fully embraces the ethos and principles of the Montessori method of
education, and which aligns these principles with the requirements of the Early Years
Foundation Stage (EYFS).
The nursery benefits from being run by a very knowledgeable, well qualified and
inspirational leadership team, and this is reflected in the fact that the majority of the
rest of the staff are parents who have been so inspired by their child’s experience at
the nursery that they have joined the team and are committed to gaining Montessori
qualifications.
Overton Children’s House provides a spacious and well-resourced environment in
which the children engage with a wide range of Montessori materials and
enhancement activities. Children are polite, confident and outgoing as they freely
access their chosen tasks; they enjoy excellent relationships with the adults, who
treat them with warmth and respect. Staff members know the children very well and
this, combined with the wide range of resources and the children’s eagerness to
explore and learn from the materials, results in a calm yet industrious atmosphere.
Since the previous MEAB accreditation the nursery has adopted a digital record-
keeping system. Children’s progress and interests are discussed on a daily basis and
staff members record these using the digital system, capturing key aspects of
learning on iPads. The parents enjoy having secure internet access to their child’s
Learning Journeys at a time to suit their needs. The introduction of this system has
also enabled the leadership team to closely monitor children’s progress with key
persons and to use these reviews as a starting point for individual performance
management during regular supervision sessions. This development meets the
previous accreditation recommendations in full.
Following the first re-accreditation visit the nursery has introduced easily accessible
written prompts and scheduled mentoring to support less experienced staff in

following Montessori activities with the children through to their full conclusion.
Parents can now see a full list of the nursery’s policies on the website and have
access to these through the nursery’s digital recording system. The nursery has also
extended its use of this digital system by regularly sharing the Learning Journeys
with the children, thus enabling them to reflect on their achievements and
experiences. This has resulted in the children becoming more involved in planning
for and extending their own learning.
The nursery environment, the dedication of the staff team and their inspirational
leaders offer the children a very genuine Montessori learning environment.
The school provides an education which follows the principles of the
Montessori approach and environment. The school has successfully
addressed the points for action recommended on the first visit, and this
merits accreditation by the Montessori Evaluation and Accreditation
Board. Consideration should be given to the following point for further
development:
 continue to support the less experienced members of the team in their
developing understanding and application of Montessori practice, and
encourage staff who are not Montessori qualified to access training.
Philosophy:
Overton Children’s House delivers high quality Montessori provision. Staff members have
excellent relationships with the children. Whilst the nursery operates a key person
system, it is evident that the whole team knows each child very well, and they offer
every child a unique play and learning journey to match their individual needs and
interests. They appreciate children’s innate potential and allow them to take the lead in
their own learning experiences. When setting up the environment each morning they
reflect on that day’s group dynamics and adapt their provision accordingly. Staff
members are particularly adept at supporting children in their understanding and
implementation of the setting’s ground rules and children manage their own behaviour
with very little teacher direction. The staff’s trust in the children as competent learners
creates a harmonious and productive environment.
The nursery’s logo headline, “Where little people come first”, and its mission statement
are both evident throughout its practice. The mission statement fully embraces
Montessori philosophy and principles and is shared with parents and visitors in the
literature handed out and on the very informative website. The well-motivated team
works to consistently refine and improve its practice and documentation. Since the first
re-accreditation visit the nursery has introduced a staff mentoring system which is
effective in supporting those less experienced team members to become more familiar
with the Montessori ethos and curriculum.

Learning and Development:
The nursery’s spacious hall is set out to give the children plenty of room to explore and
engage with the wide range of Montessori materials and other activities available. The
nursery closely follows the Montessori curriculum, with each area of learning clearly
defined and labeled accordingly; the abundance of purpose-built shelving is used very
effectively to offer an environment where child-led play and learning can take place
freely. Small individual tables and generous floor space provide places for children to
become engrossed with the materials by themselves if they so choose. Staff offer
support and guidance and, since the first re-accreditation visit, those with less
experience of the Montessori curriculum benefit from the easily accessible written
prompts that support them in confidently delivering full presentations of the materials to
the children.
The children benefit from the exemplary role models of the whole staff team; the
adults’ use of language and narration of the experiences on offer mean that the children
are exposed to a rich language environment and staff expertly engage the children in
sustained shared thinking.
The three hour work cycle in the morning (and the shorter one in the afternoon) gives
the children plenty of opportunity to spontaneously follow their interests and to engage
in teacher-led activities. Even the youngest enjoy taking responsibility for their selected
tasks and need little reminding of the cycle of activity. The children work together co-
operatively, such as in pairs on large scale Montessori exercises, and they encourage
one another to join small group activities.
Children are free to use both the indoor and outdoor space when they choose, except in
extreme weather. At the time of the second re-accreditation visit children were deeply
engaged in learning how to use garden tools safely whilst preparing the digging area to
plant out their seedlings; they confidently discussed the variety of vegetables they were
growing and how they would harvest and prepare them when they were ready.
Staff team members know the children very well and this, along with their good use of
the digital recording system, allows them to regularly review progress and plan
effectively for children’s learning experiences. The system enables seamless links to be
made across the Montessori curriculum and the EYFS areas of learning and
development. Members of the team identify any gaps in learning experiences and plan
for these accordingly. The whole nursery follows a long term plan which outlines the
seasons of the year, key occasions and festivals to be covered. Medium term planning
focuses on projects that develop from children’s interests and planning for the individual
child (which is drawn up by their key person), and ensures that all children
appropriately access the full curriculum. The children confidently discuss their
engagement with their chosen activities and members of staff speak encouragingly with
them to suggest how they can take the lead in extending their own learning. Since the
first re-accreditation visit this practice has been further enhanced by staff sharing the
children’s paper work/art folders and digital Learning Journeys with them, which

encourages the children to become fully involved in planning extensions to their own
learning experiences.
Where staff identify children that may have additional learning needs and/or disabilities,
they work in partnership with the child’s family and external agencies to help ensure
that the child is offered the opportunity to participate fully in the curriculum. For
children who join the nursery at 2 years of age staff use the digital system to complete
the mandatory two year old progress check and this is shared with parents.
The owner is supernumerary and is adept at observing and assessing the provision, and
at working with the staff team to adapt it in order to provide an exceptional learning
experience for the children.
Prepared Environment: resources and materials
The nursery offers the children a favourable, very well organised environment that
encourages their natural tendencies to explore and investigate. There is a wide and well
maintained range of Montessori materials, a book corner with a very good selection of
non-fiction and fiction books, and a well-stocked and stimulating nature table that is
used to reflect the changes in the seasons. The book corner also offers the children a
quiet place to rest and to sit and observe the rhythm of the classroom; if children wish
to sleep they are provided with ‘snuggle sacks’ in this area.
The shelves are set up to offer a range of continuous provision resources that
encourage a natural progression from the simplest of concepts to the more abstract,
thus encouraging the children to engage in a logical progression of learning
experiences. The nursery has additional materials in storage so that staff can rotate the
experiences and concepts that children are introduced to.
The children are free to choose which of the wide range of resources they engage with;
the more experienced staff members are on hand to subtly guide children to positive
learning outcomes across the whole curriculum, whilst less experienced staff members
competently introduce the children to initial concepts.
The large outdoor play area offers space to use the range of wheeled vehicles, a place
to dig, plant and nurture flowers and vegetables, and an area in which a range of
appropriately challenging physical pursuits is offered, including large block play, climbing
and jumping, and a very enticing mud kitchen which is made from locally sourced logs.
Staff and children share the responsibility of maintaining the order of the environment;
children are keen to wipe and clean any spillages and particularly enjoy using brooms,
brushes and dustpans. Throughout the sessions children can be seen tidying and caring
for their beautiful environment.

Montessori practice: independence, including independence at home,
freedom, respect
As soon as the children enter the setting they are encouraged to independently manage
their activity and belongings: they hang their coats on named pegs, change from
outdoor shoes into slippers and store their own lunch boxes in a specific space next to
the snack area.
The daily work cycles offer the children the benefit of being able to engage with their
chosen activity for as long as they wish. Children are kind and considerate to one
another and are aware that they should not disturb those who are focused on an
activity. Staff enable the children’s independence through their use of encouraging
language and will usually only intervene when requested or when it will help the child to
succeed. Children’s independence would be further enhanced if all the staff were able to
access core training on the Montessori approach; however, since the first re-
accreditation visit the nursery has introduced a mentoring system that enables those
with less Montessori experience to benefit from being continually supported by their
knowledgeable and well qualified colleagues.
The adults reinforce the setting’s ground rules and the rationale behind them; children
understand their boundaries and this leads them to be self-disciplined and guardians of
their environment by gently reminding their peers of the rules and of why they are in
place. Children’s independence is promoted through the vertical age grouping; the older
ones act as positive role models for the younger children who in turn benefit
tremendously from seeing the focused manner in which the older children engage in
their activities.
Children are trusted to develop independence in their self-care. When returning to the
classroom after being outdoors, even the youngest children follow a hand-washing
routine and the required resources are freely available that allow the children to
independently take care of their own hygiene requirements. Children freely access a
rolling snack; they can choose to help prepare the wide range of fresh fruit and
vegetables that are delivered to the nursery from a local greengrocer. Staff supervise
the children in using knives to cut the fruit and vegetables, whilst the children
themselves organise the laying out of glasses, plates and napkins. Children enjoy being
involved in the preparation of snack and lunch, and they all clear, wash and dry their
plate and glass after use.
Parents speak very highly of the way in which the nursery fosters independence; they
particularly appreciate how staff members adapt their teaching style to meet the needs
of the different personalities of the children and how this supports them to become
confident and adept at doing things for themselves.

Montessori practice: Classroom management
The dedication of the leadership team in following the principles and ethos of the
Montessori approach is evident in its management of the nursery’s day, which is
organised to ensure that the children benefit fully from their time in the setting. The
work cycle is not interrupted by whole group sessions; the only time the children need
to gather as a whole group is when they get ready to go home. Additional activities such
as a sports session on a Thursday afternoon and a French session on a Tuesday
afternoon are offered as part of, but do not disrupt, the work cycle; children are free to
join these or to carry on with their exploration of the materials.
Staff members use their knowledge and experience to work in a very effective manner
to ensure that children are well supervised. There is an excellent balance of child-led
and teacher-led activities throughout each session. Staff members ensure that all key
activities and opportunities are available to every child regardless of whether they
attend morning, afternoon or full day sessions. During the session their time is totally
devoted to the children; they take advantage of the set-up and pack-away time to
discuss the children’s development and to make on-going plans for the nursery.
Key persons are responsible for updating the records of their key children, but all staff
members are involved in observing the children’s achievements and feeding these
observations into the digital system. Children’s records are updated on a daily basis to
ensure that staff have a full overview of the children’s progress and can make decisions
on how to follow their interests. The data captured on the system is used by the
leadership team to evaluate and analyse children’s progress, staff performance and
other aspects of the provision. Children’s learning and development is enhanced by the
staff team’s growing ability to confidently embed reflective practice into their daily
routine, and their respect for the children’s ability to achieve their potential is evident
throughout the setting.
Montessori Practice: links with parents, including reports and records
The nursery has an excellent relationship with the parents; staff personally meet and
greet all parents and children on their arrival, parents have the opportunity to come into
the classroom and spend time with their children before they leave them, which leads to
a very positive community spirit. Regular face to face contact with the children’s parents
helps ensure that staff members are aware of, and able to meet the needs of, each
child in their care; they discuss concerns and work with families to find strategies to
support each child’s wellbeing.
Parents know their child’s key person and value the whole team for the part they play in
supporting their child’s development. They trust the staff and welcome their advice and
guidance on nurturing their children in the home environment. Parents speak very
highly of the tailored learning experience that their children receive and how the nursery
has enabled their children to flourish. Parents with older children who have attended the

nursery speak of how well prepared for school their children were. The nursery works
closely with local schools and makes arrangements for Reception teachers to visit those
children who are moving on to school during one of their regular sessions.
Parents value being able to access their children’s learning records digitally and
appreciate being able to directly link home and nursery experiences through these
records. The nursery sends parents messages via the web-based system and also emails
them notices and newsletters. Regular parent evenings are held. Parents feel that the
information they are given before joining the nursery enables them to be well informed
about the settling-in procedures, daily routines, the Montessori approach to education
and the EYFS. In addition to the printed literature that the parents are provided with,
the nursery’s website is well laid out and informative.
The nursery has a robust range of policies and procedures in place; these are regularly
reviewed by the whole staff team and parents are notified of any changes by email,
word of mouth, and through the parent notice board in the lobby. Since the first re-
accreditation visit the nursery has made its terms and conditions and policies available
to the parents via both the website and the password protected record-keeping system.
Parents’ opinions are highly respected and are sought regularly through termly
questionnaires, which are used by the whole staff team as a tool to support the
improvement of both their practice and the learning environment. The highest accolade
for the nursery is that they can count current and past parents amongst their staff
team; such is the high esteem for both the setting and their Montessori practice that it
inspires those who come to know them to join them.
Staffing:
Overton Children’s House benefits tremendously from the leadership team’s passion for,
and dedication to, offering children an excellent Montessori education. Staff work very
well together in following the ethos and principles of Montessori education; children
flourish under their care and attention. The owner holds a Montessori Foundation
Degree and diploma and provides motivation and inspiration to this knowledgeable staff
team. The nursery is well managed jointly by the owner and the leader. The two
assistant teachers are gaining valuable experience as they work with guidance from the
Montessori qualified staff.
When staff join the nursery they are provided with a job description and undertake one
to one induction training, which introduces them to the nursery’s policies and
procedures and to the principles and ethos of the Montessori approach. Regular staff
supervision is undertaken by the owner and this is used as a performance management
tool to identify any training that will support professional development. The recently
introduced staff mentoring system helps ensure that those less experienced staff
members are fully supported and staff regularly attend in-house training, Montessori
workshops and conferences, and relevant training that is provided by the local authority

or other agencies. The owner has identified the need to support non-qualified staff to
access Montessori training as a key development point.
Minuted whole group staff meetings take place approximately every two months and the
leaders of the two settings meet on a weekly basis to ensure continuity of practice
across the group. Overton Children’s House places the child at the heart of everything it
does and its staff should be commended for providing an embracing and genuine
Montessori environment.
Name of Assessor: Deborah Penny
Date report submitted: First visit – 3rd March 2016
Second visit – 17th May 2016

Overton

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