Bloemfontein Nursery

Inclusion: Strong standard

Leaders make early identification of children's needs and barriers a high priority. They use information from families, ongoing assessment and communication screening to identify where children need additional help. Practitioners know children exceptionally well and respond quickly when development does not progress as anticipated.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities benefit from carefully considered adaptations. Staff confidently implement professional advice and incorporate individual targets into everyday play and routines. Specialist guidance for physical development, for example, becomes part of children's everyday opportunities to move and explore rather than being treated as a separate intervention. Communication screening is used equally effectively to identify precise gaps and help staff decide what children need to learn next.

Leaders recognise that barriers can also arise from disadvantage, family circumstances and involvement with children's social care. They work closely with families and other professionals to coordinate support and challenge appropriately on children's behalf. Additional settling and transition arrangements are provided where children need them.

These highly individualised approaches enable children facing different barriers to participate fully, make strong progress from their starting points and experience the same ambitious curriculum as their peers.

Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard

Leaders have created an ambitious curriculum that gives babies a purposeful beginning to their early years education. They understand what very young children need to learn now and how these foundations contribute to later success. Communication, physical development, emotional security and independence are deliberately prioritised.

Practitioners understand the curriculum extremely well. They know what individual children can already do and use play and routines to build learning progressively. During play dough activities, for example, an adult deliberately introduced action words such as 'roll' and 'squeeze'. Children heard these repeatedly as they acted and began to imitate them. Books, rhymes, sign language and everyday conversations further enrich children's communication. Mathematical language is equally natural. Outdoors, adults count containers of water and introduce concepts such as 'full', 'empty' and 'all gone'.

Practitioners respond skilfully to what children do and communicate. They encourage babies to persevere, give them freedom to explore and sensitively extend their interests. Experiences are adapted effectively so that children who need additional help participate and learn alongside their peers.

The curriculum is inclusive for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Practitioners incorporate advice from other professionals into everyday experiences, adapting resources, interactions and routines so that children can participate fully and build from their individual starting points. For example, practitioners weave physiotherapy advice into play, using carefully chosen equipment and motivating experiences to help children develop their movement, balance and physical confidence alongside their peers.

Leaders continually refine the curriculum using what they know about children. Reflection, coaching and shared planning ensure that curriculum intentions are understood and implemented consistently across the team.

Achievement: Strong standard

Children consistently achieve well from their different starting points. Babies make strong gains in communication, physical development, emotional confidence and independence. They increasingly use words, sounds and signs to communicate, confidently explore their environment and persevere when learning something new. Early mathematical understanding develops naturally as children count, fill, empty and compare during play.

Children facing additional barriers achieve equally well. Staff maintain ambitious expectations while adapting support precisely to individual needs. Children receiving specialist support make significant progress in their mobility and communication. Those who need additional help with emotional regulation increasingly recover from difficulties and confidently re-engage with their experiences.

Children approaching transition demonstrate the knowledge, confidence and independence they need for what comes next. They follow familiar routines, communicate their needs, make choices and increasingly manage everyday tasks for themselves.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Leaders have established highly positive expectations for babies' behaviour, independence and participation. Familiar routines provide children with security while progressively encouraging them to manage more for themselves.

Children demonstrate consistently positive attitudes to their experiences. They enthusiastically join songs and movement during 'Baby Beats', concentrate during books and sensory play and persevere when physical challenges are difficult. Outdoors, children repeatedly attempt climbing and other physical challenges, encouraged by staff who recognise effort as well as success. When children need help to share, take turns or regulate their emotions, staff respond calmly, use simple language and consistently reinforce positive expectations.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported sensitively to understand routines and regulate their emotions. Practitioners adapt their communication, including using signs and simple language, helping children understand expectations, participate successfully and become increasingly confident within familiar routines.

Relationships underpin this success. Children seek reassurance from familiar adults but confidently engage with the wider team. Staff adapt their responses for children who need additional help with attachment, emotional regulation or transition.

Leaders promote regular attendance and follow up unexpected absences promptly. Calm, predictable routines, warm relationships and high expectations help babies develop the self-regulation, confidence and independence they need for their next stage.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Leaders have embedded a highly responsive approach to care. Knowing babies within the context of their families is a particular strength. Extended induction arrangements recognise that starting nursery can be a significant experience for babies, parents and carers. Staff gather detailed information about children's health, routines and development and use this to provide individualised care.

Children develop secure attachments to their key persons and flourish within these relationships. Staff recognise babies' cues, respect their choices and respond sensitively when they need comfort or reassurance. Care is equally ambitious. At lunchtime, children wash their hands, find their places and increasingly manage cups, cutlery and cleaning their own faces. Meals reflect nutritional guidance and leaders' understanding of local oral-health needs.

Children safely experience challenge. Staff enable them to climb, explore and take appropriate risks while remaining close enough to provide reassurance. Safer sleep and eating arrangements are securely understood and implemented.

Children whose developmental, physical or emotional needs require something different receive carefully adapted care without being unnecessarily restricted. Parents describe children as nurtured and thriving and have high levels of confidence in the care staff provide.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

Leaders have created a culture where improvement is continuous and staff development is taken seriously. They know the community well and use this understanding to shape priorities, including communication and language, oral health, attendance and early identification of need.

Professional learning is particularly effective. Leaders use observations, coaching, team teaching, supervision and staff reflection to identify precisely where expertise should develop. Training in communication has strengthened adult interactions, while communication screening helps practitioners identify specific gaps in children's development and target support more accurately. Staff are expected to share what they learn so that professional development benefits the whole team. Leaders accurately evaluate practice and identify even subtle refinements that could strengthen it further.

Leadership extends beyond the nursery room. Those responsible for oversight maintain a clear view of the provision and hold leaders to account for its quality and continued improvement, while identified leaders manage the nursery day to day. Leaders give appropriate consideration to staff wellbeing through supervision and support. Parents' and carers' knowledge and views shape children's induction, learning and care. Leaders also work purposefully with health professionals, the local authority and family services to strengthen provision and support families. They monitor attendance closely and pursue unexplained absences.

Leaders understand the barriers that disadvantage and wider vulnerabilities can create for children and use this knowledge effectively to shape support. They accurately understand what is working well and remain ambitious about what could be even better. Leaders recognise that evaluating the combined impact of this work more systematically would help them identify which approaches make the greatest difference for children.