Braywood Acorn Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show that they feel safe and secure as they rush into the small and welcoming nursery. The experienced leaders and staff provide a nurturing environment where all children and their families are welcome. Children have fun as they play and demonstrate a positive attitude to learning. Staff interact well with them and use effective teaching to help them to become motivated learners. For example, staff show children how to fix plastic nuts and bolts together. Throughout the activity, staff provide lots of praise and encourage children to keep trying despite finding this challenging. When children succeed, they comment to staff, 'Look, I did it!' These positive interactions help children to develop resilience and take pride in their achievements.

Children make good progress from their starting points and develop the skills they need for their next stage in learning. Leaders plan an ambitious curriculum to ensure that all children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), achieve the best possible outcomes. Children are keen to explore, investigate and find out new things. They concentrate well during child-led activities and can focus for long periods on these. For example, they enjoy exploring different materials to see which will bond together. Children discover that dry ingredients, such as oats, do not stick together but other materials, such as wet sand, do.

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

• Staff place a strong focus on supporting children's mathematical skills. They ensure that numbers and counting are incorporated into the everyday play experiences. Children demonstrate good skills in counting and sequencing numbers between one and five.
• Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and conduct. They act as positive role models and set clear rules and boundaries for children. These include being kind to others, walking indoors and helping to complete tasks. Children behave well. They are polite and kind and respond quickly to instructions from staff. For instance, when asked to line up for outdoor play they do this promptly.
• Staff complete regular assessments on children. This enables them to identify what children already know and what they need to learn next. However, staff do not consistently use this information when planning. For example, although staff identify that some children struggle with listening and attention, during some parts of the day the children are often expected to sit for adult-led activities. This leads to some children being less focused at these times. Nevertheless, children make age-appropriate progress from their starting points. They complete personal care routines independently, understand the behavioural expectations of the nursery and demonstrate good balance and coordination.
• Staff support children to learn how to take care of themselves and live healthy lifestyles. They ensure that children benefit from plenty of fresh air and regular exercise. Children enjoy the time they spend outdoors. They develop good physical skills as they use apparatus, balance bikes and progress to pedal bikes. These experiences help to support children's physical and emotional health. Children enjoy healthy and well-balanced meals and snacks throughout the day. Staff help children to understand about the importance of maintaining good oral health through planned activities and conversations.
• Overall, staff support children's communication and language effectively. Throughout activities, they provide a commentary, model good conversational skills and introduce new vocabulary. Children listen with interest to stories and sing along to familiar rhymes. Most children articulate what they know in an age-appropriate way. However, staff do not always recognise when the less confident children need encouragement to join in with conversations, especially during large-group activities.
• Leaders and staff have built good relationships with parents and other professionals involved in children's care. They ensure that parents are kept well informed about the progress their children make, for example through face-to-face meetings and sharing information electronically. Parents comment on how much their children enjoy attending the nursery.
• Staff with responsibility for supporting children with SEND are committed to collaborating with parents and other professionals to ensure that children receive targeted support. Leaders ensure that staff complete regular training to keep their knowledge and skills up to date.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance the planning and organisation of adult-led activities to ensure that these are more finely tuned to suit the individual learning needs of each child
• support staff to review children's learning opportunities to enable the quieter children to fully participate in group activities.