Ashley Manor Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle well and arrive eager to get involved in the range of stimulating activities staff offer them. The key-person system is effective, and all children create strong bonds with their key person, which enables them to feel safe and secure. Staff understand and meet the needs of all children in the nursery. They work closely with parents to gather information to enable them to offer a continuity of care from home.

Children behave well and make friends easily. Staff support children well to understand their feelings, which helps children to regulate their emotions effectively. Children enjoy a range of physical activities that help to keep them active, and this contributes towards healthy lifestyles, such as weekly physical education sessions and yoga. Children have good opportunities to be creative and thoroughly enjoy the interesting activities staff plan for them that enhance their creative development effectively. For example, they benefit from regular music sessions, daily messy play and art activities. Staff follow respectful care practices so that children feel valued. Children develop a good understanding of modern British values, with particular regard to democracy and mutual respect.

Children make good progress in all areas of their development during their time at the nursery. Staff complete regular observations and assessments of children's development and successfully identify what each child needs to learn next. Children enjoy spending time outdoors in the fresh air. On the school grounds, they learn about nature during listening walks and interact with the farm animals.

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

• All staff know and understand the curriculum and how to adapt it for every child. Staff focus on termly topics and plan activities and experiences linked to the topic. Activities are also based on what children can already do and know and what they need to learn next.
• All children benefit from a good quality of teaching and enjoy their interactions with staff. Babies excitably bounce up and down and clap as staff sing songs and rhymes to them. Kindergarten children make their own potions using coloured water, glitter and natural objects linked to a story staff read to them. Pre-school children enjoy daily circle time, where staff provide them with opportunities to engage in activities that promote their personal, social and emotional development.
• Staff promote literacy development well. For example, children are improving their literacy skills and developing a love of books through a range of stimulating and immersive activities staff plan for them around a book of the month.
• Overall, children demonstrate good attitudes to learning. They show good levels of engagement in planned activities and in their chosen play and know how to participate in the daily routines. However, there are times during some group activities and at times of transition, such as lunchtime and sleep time, that some children have to wait for prolonged periods of time, which limits their opportunities to engage in purposeful play.
• Staff enhance children's communication skills effectively. They use singing, action rhymes and stories as part of everyday practice to support children's language development.
• Parents are positive about the care and education that their children receive. They comment on the strong bonds staff build with their children and how well informed they are about their children's time at nursery and how they are developing. However, staff do not provide all parents with ideas and suggestions of how they can work collaboratively with them to support their children's learning further at home.
• Children learn about their similarities and differences and celebrate these. They develop a positive sense of self.
• All staff have benefited from effective support, coaching and training to help them fully understand their roles and responsibilities for teaching and safeguarding children. In addition to mandatory training, staff have good opportunities for ongoing professional development.
• The newly established leadership team has high expectations and is committed and passionate about the quality of care and education children receive. Leaders place a lot of emphasis on staff well-being, and this contributes to good staff morale across the nursery.
• Staff complete effective risk assessments. Children learn how to recognise hazards and keep themselves safe. For example, children learn from firefighters about what to do in the event of their clothes catching on fire. Staff identify and remove risks within the environments and take swift action to make repairs and address potential safety issues as they occur.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the organisation of activities and key routines of the day, to reduce waiting times for children and maximise their time spent in purposeful play
• develop further opportunities for home learning, to work in partnership with all parents to enable them to further support their children's learning at home.