Blackshaw Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children excitedly and enthusiastically walk into the nursery where they are greeted by familiar faces of the long-standing staff team. Staff provide a range of opportunities and experiences that are centred around children's interests, such as dinosaur play and well-loved puzzles. Following on from a recent visit in the community to a local market, a pop-up shopping experience has also been created. This helps children to relive the experience and cement their new knowledge and understanding of the world around them.

Staff and children enjoy singing. Staff provide lots of opportunities to bring songs to life with actions and props. Children excitedly shout out the next line of favourite songs and giggle when staff change the tone or pitch of the song. This helps children to extend their vocabulary. Children, including those who speak English as an additional language, make good progress with their language development.

Staff encourage children to behave well and to be polite and friendly with each other. At times, especially in the pre-school, children work together in small groups to develop their own learning. They are able to solve any small disagreements using negotiation and collaboration. Staff build strong bonds with children, which helps them to feel safe and secure.

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

• Staff provide children with a healthy balanced diet. This includes meals and snacks throughout the day. Children have access to fresh drinking water at all times and staff remind them of the need to keep hydrated. Staff also role model to children how to keep themselves safe and clean, including talking about why we wash hands before meals. This helps children to develop the knowledge and skills needed to keep themselves healthy.
• Staff provide a range of multi-sensory experiences for children. For example, babies enjoy transporting sand from the tray to the buckets and toddlers eagerly explore a tray of gloop.
• The routine of the setting is consistently applied by staff, which ensures that children feel safe and secure and know what is happening next. However, at times, staff do not always give children the opportunity to use their growing independence to do things, such as pouring their own drinks or putting on their shoes.
• Partnerships with parents are very strong and staff and parents both cite this as the most important element of the vision of the setting. Many families return with second and subsequent children as well as some parents having attended the nursery as a child. Due to the longevity of the staff team, some children and their parents have the same staff looking after them. This helps children to feel safe and secure.
• Staff sensitively support children to explore the environment in an unhurried and respectful way. This allows children to develop the confidence to freely explore the environment and lead their own learning. However, staff do not always fully consider children's individual needs and interests when planning activities. Occasionally, some children do not take an active part and engage in their learning.
• The large and well-equipped outdoor learning spaces have been well designed to ensure that children of all ages can test out their growing physical development skills. From riding the bikes to sliding down the large slide, children skilfully run, climb and jump with ease. Equal access to the outdoors in both small free-flow areas and in the main garden ensures that there are always opportunities to learn outside.
• Leaders provide staff with training and ongoing support to ensure that they are able to reflect and make ongoing improvements to the quality of teaching and learning. For example, staff have recently received training on the use of sign language to further support children's communication and language development.
• Staff well-being is a high priority, and staff enjoy their work and feel valued. There is a long-standing staff team who bring consistency of care to the children and their families. Staff feel listened to and respected by the strong leaders on site.
• Staff work well with external agencies to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Children are supported well as they move through different parts of the day and actively take part in activities, such as singing.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to provide further opportunities for children to develop their independence and self-help skills
• strengthen planning to ensure children's individual interests and needs are fully catered for and they make the best possible progress in their learning.