Acorn at Hedgerows

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff offer children a warm welcome into this nurturing and caring nursery. Children are happy and settle well. New children receive close and sensitive support from their key person to help them settle into nursery. Staff provide home visits to new children. This enables them to start building relationships and gather information about children's home lives. Staff know children incredibly well and understand their individual needs. This ensures all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, are included, and their needs are met. The manager and staff access and use any additional funding well. They provide additional resources and fund extra sessions for children who they know would benefit from this.

The new manager and staff are really passionate about what they do and how they can provide the best for the children in their care. Children are very inquisitive and imaginative. They love exploring the outdoor space and their environment, looking for bugs, caring for plants and hiding in recycled boxes. Children behave well; they listen carefully to staff instructions and follow these. Staff offer reminders of expectations as needed, such as not to eat play dough. Staff support children to cooperate with their peers and they play well with their friends. Children demonstrate sustained engagement and concentration, for example when they are cutting ribbons to decorate crowns.

What does the early years setting do well and what does it need to do better?

• The manager and staff team have developed an ambitious and well-sequenced curriculum for children. This focuses on the individual cohort of children and their knowledge of families and the local community. They ensure children experience nature and the natural environment. In addition, they prioritise helping children to understand emotions so they can begin to self-regulate and show empathy.
• On arrival, staff encourage parents to support their children to use self-registration. Children select their name and photo from the tree and stick it to a peg with their belongings. This supports a sense of belonging as well as helping children to develop a sense of self and early literacy in recognising their own names in print.
• Staff talk to children and help them learn new vocabulary. They also read stories and sing songs, so children hear lots of language. Staff have recently learned basic signs to support children to communicate, especially those who find this more difficult. However, staff do not always use this consistently to enable all children to communicate their wants and needs.
• Staff encourage children to develop healthy habits and independence skills. They offer nose wiping and drinking stations. Even the youngest children delight in getting themselves a drink of water. Staff also share oral health information with parents and encourage them to register with a dentist. The nursery has developed a recipe book so children can enjoy all their favourite healthy nursery meals at home. This enables parents to also support the development of healthy routines at home.
• The manager and her deputy have a very clear vision of what they want to achieve for the children and their families. They have a good understanding of the setting's strengths and weaknesses and what needs to be improved. They ensure staff access regular training, both internally and through an online platform, to develop their knowledge and skills. However, the arrangements to provide coaching and mentoring for staff are not yet fully effective to raise their practice to the highest level.
• Partnerships with parents and other agencies are highly effective. Staff have a really clear understanding of the community families live in. The manager and staff support families to access what they need, such as using the local food bank or children's centre services. They also share any leftover fruit and food with families so they can enjoy this at home. Staff provide a lending library and story bags to help support parents to read with their children at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• embed staff's support for children's communication and language development, to ensure this is consistent and gaps close quickly
• provide further coaching, mentoring and support for staff to raise the quality of interactions and teaching to the highest level.