Barnet Hospital Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and safe in this warm and nurturing nursery. They thrive under the care of the experienced staff, who are passionate about planning a wide variety of fun and exciting learning opportunities to help children achieve their learning goals.

Children benefit from staff's high expectations of what they can achieve. Children's individual needs are met well. For example, when babies are beginning to walk, staff rearrange furniture, allowing plenty of space for babies to cruise around it to help them become confident walkers. Children who speak English as an additional language benefit from the way that staff work hard to learn some key vocabulary from their home languages and incorporate this into daily routines. This helps children to feel a sense of pride in their home languages and to develop their communication and language skills.

Children behave very well. They smile happily as staff praise them warmly for positive behaviours. Children understand the clear expectations for their behaviour, which staff remind them of regularly by sharing the golden rules. Staff celebrate children's achievements by rewarding them with a 'well done me' medal and displaying their successes on the wall. This means that children are proud of their achievements. Children learn positive interactions through the way that staff model working as a team and supporting each other.

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

• Leaders have clear expectations for what children should learn through the curriculum for communication and language. Staff get down to the children's level and model a range of rich vocabulary. Staff narrate what children are doing throughout the day to support their developing vocabulary. For example, staff comment, 'You are popping bubbles, pop, pop, pop!' to babies. This helps babies to associate vocabulary with their actions.
• Staff share many songs and stories with the children, which supports their language development. Staff provide highly effective, targeted small-group language interventions for children who need support to develop their communication and language. Therefore, children make good progress in their language development.
• Staff carefully plan many effective opportunities for children to develop their physical skills. For example, pre-school children hammer nails into vegetables and then use pliers to pull the nails out again. Other children cut up broccoli using scissors or knives. Opportunities such as these help children to strengthen the small muscles in their hands. Children also develop their core strength by climbing and balancing along ramps and other equipment.
• Staff help children to develop their independence skills. They lay their own tables, take their coats off and hang them up, or go and get a tissue when they need one. Staff teach children perseverance. For example, children keep trying to hammer in a nail and do not give up, even though it is challenging for them. Developing skills such as these helps children to build their self-confidence and prepares them well for the next stage of their learning journey.
• Staff fulfil their key-person roles well. They work hard to develop a good understanding of what children know and need to learn next, and carefully consider how to support children to achieve these next steps. This leads to children making good progress from their individual starting points.
• Leaders support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities effectively. They work in partnership with parents and other professionals to ensure that staff provide any extra support children need. This helps all children to access the curriculum and achieve their learning goals.
• Leaders work hard to build strong parent partnerships. They communicate well so that parents understand what their children are learning about within the setting. This helps parents to support children at home with their learning.
• Leaders provide some valuable opportunities for professional development for staff, such as a system of supervision meetings and training courses. However, leaders are not always confident at identifying how staff can make their teaching even better. Leaders do not always reflect on how to continuously strive for improvement in their own knowledge and practice.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure that professional development opportunities are used effectively to support leaders and staff to continuously improve their practice.