Bluebells of Ratby Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

All children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, are happy to arrive and quickly engage themselves in the range of inviting activities that staff offer them. Children are able to revisit previous learning. For example, outdoors, staff help younger children to learn about shadows, explaining that the sun needs to be behind them to cast a shadow on the ground. Indoors, children are shown how toy dinosaurs can make shadows on walls, giving them pencils to draw around the shadow. Children are supported to develop their speaking skills. For instance, when younger children move from outdoors to indoors, staff sing a song with children about soldiers as they march to the door.

Children are supported to develop their knowledge of how objects attach themselves together. When children play with large magnetic shapes in the garden, staff help them to understand that the edges of the shapes are magnetic and this is what makes them attach to each other. When older children want to play with the same toy, staff help them to understand how to take turns. For instance, they explain who can play with the toy first and who will have a turn next, encouraging sharing. Children are supported by staff to understand how they can keep themselves safe. For example, staff talk to children about road safety when they walk with them in the street.

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

• The manager and staff implement a curriculum that enables children to build on their learning. This includes supporting children to complete tasks on their own. For example, staff remind younger children to put on their sun hats to promote their health when they play outdoors. Older children are encouraged to manage more difficult items of clothing, such as to put on their socks.
• The manager speaks to children's key person and parents to help identify how to spend additional funding that some children receive. The money is spent effectively to support children's development. For instance, the manager arranges for outside agencies to support children's listening and attention skills when they are shown how to do gymnastics.
• The manager and staff invite parents into the nursery to share their own cultures and traditions with the children. This helps children who speak English as an additional language to have a sense of belonging. It helps other children to learn about similarities and differences in families.
• During group times, staff ask children to remember some of the rules and boundaries to help promote positive behaviour. Children remember that they need to use their 'walking feet' and 'inside voices'. However, staff do not consistently support older children during group times to understand their expectations to take turns to answer questions and to listen to the views of others. This may confuse children.
• Staff are supported by the manager to extend their professional development. Recent training courses help staff to build on their knowledge of how to support children to regulate their feelings. For example, they ask children to join in deep breathing exercises. Staff blow bubbles, and children lie down and let the bubbles float across their bodies. This helps children to relax and be calm.
• Staff provide activities that help children to develop the muscles in their arms through making large movements. For example, older children use paintbrushes with water to make marks on the wall outdoors. However, staff do not fully support older children to recognise numbers and letters correctly when they are interested in doing this. For example, when children want to write numbers and the letters in their name and they do this backwards, staff do not help them to secure their knowledge of how to write these the correct way.
• The manager and staff support children to be emotionally ready for their move on to school. For example, they take older children for regular visits to schools during the summer term. This helps children to become familiar with the environment and teachers before they move on.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's interactions with children to help children to recognise numbers and letters correctly when they take an interest in doing this
• support staff to consistently help older children to learn to take turns to answer staff's questions and to listen to the views of others during group times.