‘Significant weaknesses’ found at Melrose after-school club

A Care Inspectorate visit to the Big Space Out of School Club, based in an annex at Melrose Primary School in Huntly Road, found the service ‘weak’ in three of the areas evaluated – the quality of care, playing and learning, staffing and the service setting.

Only leadership received the higher rating of “adequate”.

Now an action plan has been drawn up to better support the children’s needs.

The Big Space, a non profit-making charity run by a voluntary parent committee, is separate from the primary school and caters for children aged between four years and 15.

The report uncovered a disorganised environment.

It says: “The systems in place for personal planning were not effective in supporting children’s needs. Information had been provided by parents to help staff meet their child’s needs but this had not been read by staff. Files were sorted in a way which made it very difficult for staff to find information easily.”

While acknowledging that staff were “kind and caring” towards children it noted that one youngster was “ignored” by staff.

The report adds: “The quality of interactions with children needed improvement to ensure that staff paid attention to children’s requests and needs for assistance. For example, one child spent significant periods of time following staff, trying to attract their attention. Staff ignored the child as they were undertaking other tasks.”

It was found that staff did not monitor hand washing and at lunchtime “children sat in a corridor at tables which had not been cleaned”.

A staff member was observed making smoothies for children at a table not suitable for food preparation and food that children brought to the club and needed refrigerated was not appropriately stored

The report notes that play resources had increased since the last inspectors visit, but adds: “On the day of our visit some children were smashing bricks with hammers, which they enjoyed, but it was not appropriately supervised and safety equipment such as goggles were not used.

“Overall staff in the club provided continuity of care and most children knew the staff group. However, there were children using the club who could not tell us staff members names. More work was needed to ensure that children coming to the club for holiday periods were familiar with staff, routines for the day and were supported to make relationships with peers.”

The inspection took place on August 4 and the manager was informed of its findings on August 26 with the service given three weeks to introduce a series of improvements.

The report adds: “The manager was new to the club and, at the time of our visit, had limited opportunities to begin the processes of self-evaluation. Between our visit and feedback the manager had worked with the provider to develop an action plan to address outstanding issues.”

A Big Space Out of School Club representative has been approached for comment on the report.