Bidborough Village Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children receive a warm welcome on arrival at the nursery school and have the individual support they need to separate from their parent or carer. This enables all children to settle happily and quickly and to start their play and learning promptly. Children access an environment that staff plan successfully to help ensure that all children make good developmental progress. Children play calmly and with purpose at their chosen activity and concentrate for extending periods. For example, children sat colouring using different-sized pencils and stencils, chatting animatedly. They showed great skill in holding the stencils while drawing the shapes, which supports their early writing skills.

Children show great delight as they join in with glee to singing and story sessions. This is a regular feature which enables children to learn and practise new songs and accompanying actions. They use long ribbons to twirl around, along with moving their bodies to the beat of the music. Children learn to predict what happens next in stories. For instance, they talked about what animal is coming next in the book and then pretended to be those animals, such as being a monkey swinging through the trees.

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

• The early years teacher has a clear understanding of the current intent for the curriculum and how this is devised from what children need to learn next. Staff know the children well, including their development needs, their personalities and interests. There are clear ambitions for all children, including those learning English as an additional language and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Children are confident to ask for help with tasks and requests for resources. For example, they request clean paper for drawing to enable them to join in at the table with their friends. Children learn the importance of playing together and the enjoyment of role play. For example, they role play 'working from home', pretending to use their computers and mobile phones, and also enjoy being a 'teacher'.
• There is a clear routine to the nursery day. However, the change to another part of the day sometimes disrupts children's play and enjoyment. This is occasionally a little unsettling for some children as there is no advance warning to support them to conclude their play.
• Staff are alert to children who may not be fully engaging in a play and learning experience and are skilful in helping children to direct their learning. As they understand children's interests, they are able to make suggestions to capture their imagination, such as climbing on the slide or looking for bugs.
• Children thoroughly enjoy outdoor play. They show great interest in finding different insects and also making houses with things they may need. Children gain good large-muscle development, for example, as they balance on beams and practise learning to walk using stilts.
• Parents speak highly of the care and education their children receive. Many parents are now having their second child attend the nursery and comment that they recommend the setting to others. There was clear communication with parents during the COVID-19 pandemic. This included the sharing of activity ideas to enable parents to support children's learning at home.
• Staff manage children's behaviour effectively and positively. For example, children learn to use 'kind hands' and are learning to share and take turns and do so with minimal staff support. However, staff do not always explore further ways to enable children to manage sharing independently.
• Staff receive effective support from the owner and each other. There is a clear team ethos which enables all staff, including those training, to have a good sense of well-being. Staff have consistent opportunities to identify further training to enhance their professionalism.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• revise how changes of routines are managed to ensure that they are supportive of all children and do not disrupt their learning
• explore differing ways to enable children to learn more about managing turn taking independently.