Brighter Beginnings Chadderton

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff know children very well. They take time to settle new children, visiting their homes and allowing both families and children time to feel comfortable within the nursery. Staff learn about the children's interests, home lives and stages of development. This helps to build strong key-person bonds, which focuses on children's well-being and personal growth. Children are happy at the nursery.

Staff respond to children's needs, helping children to feel safe and secure while at nursery. Staff are positive role models. They use positive approaches, such as stories and activities that help children learn how to express their feelings and emotions and regulate their behaviour. Children who struggle with their feelings are given extra time, resources and strategies, which supports them to begin to regulate how they are feeling.

The provider has implemented a broad curriculum that builds on children's experiences. Staff provide a good range of interesting activities and learning opportunities that spark children's curiosity and engagement in learning. For instance, children are eager to learn about and interact with a giant African snail. The children show care as they feed the snail cucumbers and create safe environments for the snail to explore. Staff are close by and support children by encouraging and praising them, helping them to know how to interact with the snail safely.

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

• The provider's curriculum places a strong focus on supporting children to develop skills for life, such as independence, confidence and resilience. Staff plan a variety of activities for children, which considers their interests and prepares them well for transition to school.
• Staff have a clear understanding of the learning intentions within their curriculum, which is well sequenced to help children remember previous learning. All children, including those children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress in their development.
• Children have many chances to develop their independence. Older babies take off their coats, and toddler children learn to respect crockery and use cutlery when eating. In the pre-school room, children show more confidence by helping to set up for mealtimes. This gives them a real sense of independence and responsibility.
• Children are given ample opportunities to develop their large and fine motor skills. Outdoors, children are highly motivated. They enjoy balancing and managing risks as they create pathways using wooden planks and crates. Furthermore, staff provide dough and pouring and filling activities to strengthen children's fine motor skills in preparation for future writing.
• Overall, the curriculum for communication and language is well implemented. Staff introduce new vocabulary to babies, such as 'roll' when rolling balls in a sensory yogurt activity. Pre-school children engage in a discussion about meteorologists during focused circle time. However, some parts of the curriculum are less well implemented. For example, children are not always given sufficient time to respond to questions. This does not support children gaining skills in back-and-forth interactions that are important for building firm foundations in language structures.
• The provider actively promotes children's awareness of the wider world through a range of interesting activities. Children participate in regular outings, including forest school visits and trips to the park. Children engage in meaningful experiences, such as using real tools to fix and create structures. Staff model positive affirmations with a 'can-do' attitude. This builds the children's confidence, imagination and resilience as they learn about the wider world.
• Overall, support for staff's continuous improvement is good. The provider recognises and responds to staff's training needs. For instance, they have organised training for staff to understand and support resilience within risky play. The observations of staff's practice are not as focused to help build and improve their teaching to benefit children further. As a result, there are occasional inconsistencies in the quality of staff's interactions with children.
• Parents speak positively about the setting and feel well supported by the approachable staff. Staff provide daily updates using an online app and give face-to-face feedback at the end of each day. Parents are provided with a summary of their children's progress and ideas about how this can be supported at home. There are home-learning resources available, and books are shared regularly. This helps children to make good progress in their development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the curriculum for communication and language that promotes children's development in back-and-forth interactions, in support of their growing skills in language structures
• build on the arrangements that are already in place for offering staff support, coaching and training so that staff's interactions with children are consistent and of high quality.