Alphabets Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish in the incredibly welcoming and inviting nursery. All children enter the setting with confidence. They follow the routines of the setting with ease and maturity before joining their friends in play. At breakfast time, all the children come together. They confidently self-serve from the healthy range of items available to them. Children excitedly talk and engage with their friends, needing minimal input from staff. Children are actively encouraged to be independent. Even the youngest of children are taught how to take care of themselves. Toddlers can reach the sinks to wash their hands and the older children use the 'nose blowing and hydration station' to clean their faces and access drinks when they need one.

All children are fully involved and engaged in what they do. They lead their own play with confidence. The environment is skilfully planned and changed regularly to meet the needs and interests of the children. Children have secure bonds with the staff and are excited to invite them into their play. For instance, when children are being imaginative and pretending to be doctors, they invite the staff to be the patients. They use their knowledge of the world and past experiences to diagnose staff with 'a sore throat and temperature'.

Babies show sustained levels of curiosity as they explore a range of natural resources. For instance, they open boxes and plastic cartons eagerly to find out what is inside. Staff position resources skilfully to encourage children to lean forward into crawling positions to promote their physical development.

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

• The curriculum is highly effective and thoughtfully planned. It is sequenced well by the knowledgeable staff, who understand the needs of the children. For instance, staff in the baby room fully understand how children develop in order to provide secure foundations for their learning. This enables them to transition as confident children to the next room. Staff know exactly what they want children to achieve, ready to transition to school, and embed this learning extremely well. Links staff establish with local schools further support children to be emotionally ready for their eventual transition.
• All children have their needs met superbly. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are swiftly identified. The highly effective support and strategies put into place by the special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) support all children to make exceptional progress. For instance, staff recognise the impact that COVID-19 has had on children's speech development, and their intent across all rooms is to develop children's language. They introduce and model language consistently and highly effectively to extend children's speech further. For example, when a child recognised one of the cars was silver, the practitioner introduced the word 'chrome' to extend and develop their vocabulary.
• Parents form incredibly close and respectful bonds with the staff team. They are provided with valuable opportunities to be able to discuss their child with their key person and SENCo. This empowers parents to play an active role in their child's early learning and development. Parents feel incredibly lucky that their children get to attend this nursery.
• Leaders and managers are inspirational. They know the staff team and their strengths impeccably well. Together, staff and leaders reflect on and evaluate everything they do. Each and every staff member has incredibly high expectations of what they want the children to achieve. Staff feel empowered to spend their time interacting with the children as the management team expect minimal paperwork from the staff. This is reflected in how well they know each individual child and their next steps in learning throughout the setting.
• Children show upmost respect for each other and the staff. Staff interactions with children are at a consistently high level. They support children to keep trying in order to succeed, which are skills children will use in their future learning. For instance, staff verbalise their thinking out loud. When they tried to roll a car along a tube and it fell off, they commented, 'I'm going to have to keep practising that'. Children offer reassurance to the staff and show a natural desire to help each other achieve.
• Children have superb opportunities to learn about people and the world around them. For example, children regularly bring in photos of their family and events that they have attended. These are proudly displayed in the setting for everyone to see. Children are motivated to tell their friends what they have been doing and who their family are. These conversations then come to life as children act out their home customs, such as mirroring their parents working from home in the role play office area. This highly effective idea encourages children to actively learn about how other families live and their beliefs.