Ashton House Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are exceptionally settled at this awe-inspiring and unique nursery. The incredible environment is an oasis of play, adventure and exploration. Children have adapted remarkably well following the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff fully understand children's individual needs and how to support their emotional well-being. Staff and children build wonderful relationships with each other.

All areas of the nursery are buzzing hives of activity. Everywhere you look, children are incredibly engaged and highly motivated in their learning. Babies babble with delight while making their own choices during their play. They develop their senses and become excited while making 'music' with pinecones and sticks. Toddlers enthuse while creating large-scale art outdoors using large brushes. They compare the sizes of the carrots that they harvest and focus intently while opening bean pods to count the beans. Older children develop their imaginations while enacting their favourite stories, roaring that, 'I'm a big monster'. They show pride while successfully climbing planks of wood. Children count their fingers to check that each finger is safely inside protective gloves before using saws and hammers.

Staff expertly promote children's physical development and their resilience. For example, babies build strong core muscles and learn to walk quickly. Toddlers learn how to ride bicycles on the challenging track. Older children show remarkable strength and skill while safely climbing trees. They concentrate deeply while hammering nails into wood and sawing sticks to make models of sunflowers.

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

• The leaders of this nursery are inspirational. Their extraordinary ambition to 'develop the whole child in mind, body and heart' so they can be the 'best possible version of themselves' is consistently embedded across the nursery. Every single person involved, including children, staff and parents, fully buy-in to the 'Ashton House Way'. This is what makes this exceptional nursery so special.
• All children, including those with funded places and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make excellent progress. Leaders have carefully designed an inspiring curriculum which progressively builds on the knowledge and skills that children already have, and what they need to learn next. Staff expertly follow children's interests to keep them highly engaged in all that they do. This means that children are exceptionally well prepared for their next stages in learning, including their eventual move to school.
• Huge consideration is given by staff to developing children's communication, language and thinking skills. Children learn sign language from the earliest age. Staff use highly effective questioning techniques to help children to think carefully and develop their vocabulary. For example, while talking about flowers, children use and understand words, such as stalk, petals, seeds and nectar.
• Staff foster children's love and pleasure for reading tremendously well. Children access an abundance of quality books throughout the day. They relish in the sheer delight of sitting quietly and reading books on a blanket in the woodland.
• Children are exceedingly confident individuals with impeccable manners. They eagerly approach the inspectors with intrigue. Children are keen to show off their talents in literacy, while skilfully typing their names using keyboards. They tell the inspectors about the fire safety rules with astounding clarity.
• Care practices are exceptional. Children's independence is promoted from the very start, for example, babies feed themselves with spoons. Children hang their belongings up and persevere while fastening their shoes. They eat and serve themselves healthy, nutritious, home-cooked food. Children grow their own produce, such as apples, and are excited to harvest these when they are ready. Older children cook their teacakes and apples using sticks on the fire and comment on how the cinnamon bubbles 'because it is getting hot'.
• Children's learning about the world around them is phenomenal. They visit the nursery's animals and learn about them, while the pigs wallow in the mud. Children plant seeds and discover lifecycles. They learn about similarities and differences between themselves and others, such as by fundraising for charities. Children learn that differences should be celebrated and respected.
• Partnership working is excellent. Leaders create strong links with schools and staff work astoundingly well with external professionals and parents, so that children get the support that they need to truly thrive. In addition, the local community helped to develop the incredible outdoor environment.
• Parents commend the nursery for being 'a home-from-home' where their children 'thrive' and are nurtured to become 'strong in their own self-belief'. They praise staff for going 'above and beyond' and say that their children 'love and respect' them. Parents find the information that staff share 'invaluable'.
• Leaders' curriculum efforts are wholly matched with the exquisite programme of bespoke training and support for staff. This is tailored to staff's individual needs and helps them to achieve qualifications. Staff have special 'aspirations' to aim for which contribute to wider self-improvement work. They have exceptionally high levels of well-being and say that the nursery is 'so special'.