Belmont Montessori Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy exploring the wide range of resources available to them in safe and secure surroundings. Staff place a strong focus on building children's personal, social and emotional well-being. Children benefit from the trusting and respectful relationships they develop with staff and their friends. Staff support children to behave well. Where children need extra help with regulating their feelings and emotions, staff sensitively help them. Children listen to staff and respond well to them as they learn to wait patiently and take turns with toys and resources.

The curriculum is varied and enables all children to make good progress from their starting points. Staff create activities that ignite children's curiosity. For instance, children enjoy role play as they engage in pretending to be dentists. They use a variety of resources to support them to gain a strong understanding of removing plaque when brushing their teeth. Staff recognise how physical play benefits children's understanding of healthy lifestyles and support this area of learning well. Children enjoy a good range of songs and rhymes and develop their problem-solving skills by exploring different ideas. They count out the number of pancakes they make from dough, and staff support them to use their fingers to represent numbers.

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

• The managers work with their staff team to ensure that all staff understand how young children learn. Staff are now confident to plan and implement the curriculum. They use assessment well to identify children's next steps in learning.
• Children learn about oral hygiene. A laminated 'mouth model' and plastic toothbrushes enable children to explore these during play. Mirrors and other role-play dental equipment enable children to look inside their mouth and to develop an understanding of how long to brush their teeth for. Accompanying pictures where children use pens to colour in plaque and remove it with a toothbrush help to support healthcare at home.
• Staff understand how young children learn and regularly introduce new language to children. This helps children with English as a second language to develop their vocabulary and speaking skills. In addition, the introduction of story sacks helps to develop children's listening skills. Children increase their range of vocabulary and become confident communicators.
• Staff teach children new skills during large group activities, such as talking about the benefits of eating healthy foods and the impact it has on their good oral health. However, on a small number of occasions, children who are not yet developmentally ready are expected to take part in large group times. This means that some children do not benefit fully from these larger group sessions.
• The managers provide support and coaching to help staff improve their practice. They generally have a good overview of what is happening in the nursery because they work alongside children and staff and watch what they are doing. However, they could further raise the quality of teaching for staff by addressing more targeted professional development.
• Children use a variety of creative resources to help them develop their sensory skills. For instance, children enjoy rolling dough to make balls and using cutters or rolling pins to explore making patterns. They manipulate play dough to strengthen their hands and count how many holes they can make. Staff encourage conversations that support children's counting skills. Activities such as these help children to develop good attitudes to their learning.
• Successful partnerships are formed with parents. Overall, parents are complimentary about the setting. They report that their children settle well, saying that staff are supportive and friendly. They comment that their children's social, communication and language skills are developing well.
• Outside, children engage in bug hunting. They play with magnifying glasses, looking for bugs in mud, dried leaves and pine cones from the garden. Children create and practise balancing on obstacle courses using small wooden blocks, while others ride around on bikes. All children develop good physical skills.
• Staff are alert to children's emotions and behaviour. They act quickly to resolve and avoid minor disputes. Staff teach children about how their actions can impact others. Children are kind and behave very well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider how to adapt teaching during large group times for children who are not yet ready to take part
• target future professional development opportunities in order to help to refine and enhance staff teaching skills more precisely.