Aktiva Kingsbrook View

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are excited to arrive at the nursery and quickly settle into their learning. The curriculum they follow is multi-layered, where they explore different aspects of learning numerous times to help them to master what they need to know. For example, children play with dough, where their squeezing, shaping and rolling of the dough strengthens the small muscles in their hands and fingers. During group times, children focus on getting to know different letters of the alphabet. They sound out the letter and practise forming its shape in their air with their fingers. These preparations for learning to write help children to gain the necessary skills before they start to explore making marks on paper.

Children are confident and expressive talkers who share their ideas and initiate conversations with others. They show enthusiasm as they talk about the things that excite them. The nursery is exceptionally welcoming and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities make excellent progress in the staff's nurturing care.

Children behave extremely well and demonstrate an insatiable appetite for learning. In the garden, they explore cause and effect with wonder and curiosity. They observe what happens if they pour more water into a drainpipe filled with balls. Children run to the end of the drainpipe to catch the balls as they work out that more water makes the balls move faster.

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

• Staff are all very knowledgeable about their key children's home lives, which enables them to work effectively with parents and to plan for their learning. Staff know the curriculum intent and understand how to implement it successfully to build on children's previous experiences. Staff confidently discuss the progress children make and have a good understanding about children's development, showing high expectations for what children can achieve.
• Children demonstrate that they can apply their previous learning. When matching letters to pictures of the same sound, they can work out the correct piece of the puzzle by testing the sound as they say what is in each picture. Children are rightly pleased with themselves when staff praise their success.
• Overall, the quality of interactions between staff and children are good and staff support children well. However, some children wait for parents to collect them at lunchtime. During this short changeover period, these children do not have opportunities to engage in meaningful learning and appear left out as the main group prepare for their lunch.
• Group times are beneficial for supporting children to develop social relationships and understand some of the rules of communicating with others. Children show they are interested in what others say as they face forward and listen. This is testament to the staff's good ability to cultivate children's respect and consideration for others. Children have opportunities to share their experiences and talk about what makes them unique and special.
• Staff manage mealtimes safely. Children gain independence as they prepare and eat their lunch. Staff eat their lunch with the children, which models positive behaviours and attitudes towards healthy eating. This helps to create an informal and relaxed atmosphere at mealtimes.
• The provider makes excellent use of additional funding for vulnerable children. They plan enticing new experiences that fascinate children. For example, children and parents talk excitedly about the joy of watching eggs hatch into chicks at the nursery.
• Staff report how happy they are in their work. They feel highly valued by the provider, who appreciates the benefit of encouraging staff's training and personal development. The provider invests in supporting staff to advance their knowledge and skills. Consequently, staff inject their enthusiasm and motivation back into their practice. This is evident in the good quality of care and education they provide for children.
• Parents compliment the staff and the care that their children receive at the nursery. They talk about the good range of ways staff communicate with them. For example, there are parents' evenings, where they can talk about their child's progress in depth with their key person. Parents say staff always make time to talk at the end of the day and parents feel this enables them to support children's learning at home successfully.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure that the good quality of interactions between staff and children and meaningful opportunities for children's learning continue during times of change, such as when children are waiting to go home at lunchtime.