Belz Cheider

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy, safe and settled in this lively and vibrant nursery. On arrival, they separate easily from their parents and dash into their rooms, keen to see their friends and start the day. The nursery has a particular focus on supporting children's communication and language skills and developing a love of books. Staff skilfully take every opportunity to encourage children to look at books or listen to a story. Children call to their friends to 'come over' as the story starts. They help themselves to blankets and cushions and make themselves comfortable. They clearly enjoy listening to the story, predicting what will happen next and what is underneath the flaps on the pages. Outside, children choose to sit and read a book about diggers, excitedly telling the inspector 'look they are building a bridge!' This ensures a strong start for children's future reading development as they move on to school.

Staff know the children extremely well and have warm and positive relationships with them. During snack time, staff and children have interesting conversations about important events in their families, such as a wedding or a new baby. Children are encouraged to discuss their feelings and emotions about these events. This gives them a good understanding of what makes them unique and teaches them the language of feelings.

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

• Children are helpful and polite while at nursery. Staff have clear expectations for behaviour, such as insisting that children greet a visitor with a friendly 'hello'. At tidy-up time, children immediately stop what they are doing and put toys and musical instruments away in the correct place without being asked. Children carefully clean sand up off the floor and put the hay back in place in the outside area. This shows that they understand what is expected of them.
• Children enjoy taking part in a range of activities. Overall, they engage enthusiastically and behave well. However, at times, many of the choices on offer are highly structured, and the enthusiastic staff overly direct activities. This reduces the opportunities for children to develop their creativity, ideas and problem-solving skills.
• Children demonstrate that they are confident. While washing their hands, a child notices that the paper towels have run out. They confidently go to the store and get another pack, encouraged and praised by the staff member. When a cup of water is knocked over, children know what to do. They fetch tissues, mop up the water and carefully put the tissues in the bin. This demonstrates children's strong independence skills.
• Outside, children have lots of fun. They search for letters and numbers in the sand, play with trucks and use water wheels. They enthusiastically search for animals in a big mound of hay, challenging their friend to guess what animal they will pull out next. Children choose from a wide selection of scooters and bicycles. They enjoy walking around playing musical instruments and running along with a bubble wand. This develops their physical skills well.
• Healthy lifestyles are promoted. For example, at snack time, children discuss how an orange feels, what it tastes like and why it is a healthy choice. Staff report that many more children now choose to drink water, encouraged by the reward of a 'healthy choice' wristband and lots of praise from the staff. Children are beginning to understand the importance of making healthy choices.
• Staff clearly enjoy working at the nursery. They speak with respect and warmth about their colleagues, the children and the community that they serve. They have regular meetings with the manager to discuss their key children's progress and next steps. However, the supervision meetings do not always have a clear enough focus on further developing staff skills and knowledge. This limits the opportunities to further improve the quality of teaching.
• Parents are full of praise for the nursery team. They describe them as 'very dedicated' and 'so kind and caring'. They report that their children are excited to come to nursery, and that they are happy and settled. They appreciate seeing the crafts and drawings that the children bring home and reading the weekly newsletter. However, parents are not always clear about the role of the key worker and how to continue to support their child's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen resources and independent activities provided for children, to further develop their problem-solving skills and creativity
• continue to develop the supervision and support for the staff to ensure a more precise focus on their professional development
• further develop partnership working and the key-person system with parents, so that they understand more clearly what they can do to support their child's learning at home.