Beenham Caterpillars

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

As children arrive at the nursery, they receive warm and welcoming interactions from staff, who engage in conversations with them. Children form strong emotional attachments with staff, who get to know them well. This helps children to settle quickly and feel safe and secure.

Children are becoming independent learners who confidently access activities and resources for themselves. For example, staff encourage children to use cutlery to cut up their own fruit for snack. Overall, children behave well. Children learn to take turns and share equipment as they enjoy the inside slide. Staff support children in the outdoor area to help build their self-confidence as they have fun learning to navigate push along cars.

The curriculum supports children to develop a love of learning. Staff provide a range of exciting learning experiences, both indoors and outdoors. These fuel children's imagination. For example, children show delight as they pretend to be dinosaurs. Staff tune in to children's interests, and they build their knowledge and understanding from these interests as they read stories about dinosaurs with the children. Staff demonstrate that they prioritise children's well-being. For example, they check that children are dressed in suitably warm outdoor clothing. Staff act as good role models and encourage children to be kind and to develop good friendships. They encourage children to play with and alongside their friends throughout the day. This helps to build children's personal and social development.

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

• Children immerse themselves in activities. Older children use their gross motor skills to transport equipment around the garden. Younger children explore a mixture of cornflour and water and build their fine motor skills as they squeeze and squash the mixture. Overall, staff use opportunities in children's play to extend children's learning. However, at times, staff answer questions for children and solve problems for them rather than encouraging them to do this themselves to extend their curiosity and thinking skills.
• Leaders work closely with staff to role-model good practice and support professional development. They offer regular, constructive feedback to staff. This helps to support the team to drive improvement across the setting.
• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is carefully considered. Staff work closely with parents and professionals to help ensure that children receive continuous support and guidance. All children make good progress from their starting points.
• Children enjoy music and singing. They delight in using the musical instruments, which helps to develop their awareness of rhythm and rhyme. Staff sing spontaneously during play and care routines. Children eagerly join in with familiar words and actions. Staff engage children in lively music and movement opportunities, which further develop their physical skills.
• Staff are attentive to any unwanted behaviour and always ensure that the children are safe. However, sometimes, staff do not fully explain the impact that unwanted behaviour might have. For example, they say 'kind hands' or 'walking feet' but do not explain what could happen if they run or throw something or snatch. As a result, some children repeat the behaviour.
• Parents speak highly of the setting, particularly about the staff and good communication they receive. Staff work in partnership with parents to continue to support children's learning at home. For example, they share home learning ideas with parents through posts on their online journals. This supports the continuation of children's learning and development.
• Staffing arrangements meet the needs of all children and ensure their safety. Staff complete risk assessments to identify and remove risks within the environment. This helps to keep children safe. Children benefit from meals cooked on the premises. Staff implement effective systems to ensure that children are not exposed to food to which they may be allergic.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to be consistent in their behaviour management strategies to support children to learn why their unwanted behaviour is not acceptable
• help staff in understanding how to extend and challenge children's curiosity and thinking skills even further.