Bright Horizons Norfolk Lodge Montessori Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and managers have careful oversight of the curriculum. They fully understand what children need to learn and why they need to learn it. They thoroughly support staff to provide an interesting and engaging range of activities and experiences. Staff welcome children warmly, and help them feel at home in the nursery. Children show that they feel safe as they seek help from their trusted adults at any time they are unsure. Staff are positive role models and they use encouraging language and gentle reminders to support children to behave well overall.

Children thoroughly enjoy time outdoors in the exciting nursery garden where they have wonderful opportunities to explore the world around them. Children are fascinated by the world around them and are encouraged to explore and understand the features of creatures that they find in woodland. Staff and children enthusiastically discuss the number of legs on a beetle and examine this carefully through a bug viewer. As the children explore worms and slugs, staff encourage children to handle these animals with care, reminding them to be gentle to living creatures. Staff help children explore the language around the animals. For example, they introduce words to describe the animals which children then copy. Children describe the worm as soft and the slug as slimy and sticky.

Children thoroughly enjoy moving their bodies to music as they listen to familiar songs, and tap the rhythm of the music as they bang sticks together. They explore resources in a bag that link to a trip to a jungle. Staff help children to work things out for themselves as they give children time to identify a compass, and then think about how this will help them on their journey through the jungle.

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

• Leaders and managers have a clear and ambitious vision for the nursery. They have high expectations of all staff and support them through close supervision and regular training to help them work towards their goals. Leaders and managers provide clear and insightful feedback to staff to help improve their practice. Managers and leaders clearly know and understand the strengths of the setting and the areas where they want to continue to drive improvement.
• Staff report that they feel very well supported, something which is evidenced by the high level of staff retention. The managers work very well together to ensure that they offer support to any staff member who may need it. This results in a cohesive and experienced team that is well placed to help children acquire all the skills they need to help them in their future learning.
• Staff know children's needs very well. They understand children's home lives, their starting points when they join and their progress over time. They use this knowledge to support children's learning and care needs to a high level. Staff identify any gaps in children's learning swiftly and put plans in place to deal with these rapidly. All children make very strong progress.
• All children have vast opportunities to be creative. They are provided with lots of opportunities to develop their own ideas as they use a wide range of mark-making tools and natural materials to create their own artwork. Staff place great value on children's work and display this, helping children to feel valued. Children's talents are celebrated and they feel a great sense of achievement.
• Children are confident, independent and they form strong friendships. However, on occasions, children lose interest in activities and interrupt the learning of others. Staff do not consistently help all children to understand the effects this behaviour can have on others.
• The curriculum is embedded across all rooms and staff plan experiences based on children's prior experiences, interests and knowing what children need to learn next. However, occasionally during adult-focused activities, some staff do not consider how to adapt their teaching to help every child to remain highly engaged in their learning.
• Staff encourage children's independence incredibly well. They encourage children to do things for themselves, for example putting their shoes on and serving their own food. Children are very eager to persevere until they achieve a task. They problem-solve and find solutions and are very proud when they achieve an end goal. Children have great respect for their environment as they learn to care for living creatures and to look after flowers and vegetables that they grow.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop further the curriculum for personal, social and emotional development, to help all children better understand the impact of their behaviour on others, particularly when this interrupts other children's learning
• help staff to more consistently recognise when to adapt activities to sustain children's attention more successfully.