Brooklands Young Explorers

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and staff provide a caring and nurturing environment that fosters children's current interests. They prioritise children's emotional well-being, where children feel safe and secure at nursery. From this, children settle well, and staff form strong bonds with children to help them feel a real sense of belonging. Children show deep fascination with play dough and make 'wiggly worms'. Staff model how to roll play dough as children talk about what owls like to eat. Children beam with smiles as they show one another the worms they have created. This helps children to develop a kind and caring attitude towards each other.

Children have ample opportunities to explore their physical skills. They like to use bikes and cars to race one another. Staff help children to practise their balancing skills as they climb stairs and tyres confidently. Children show excitement when they reach the top and take a big jump. This develops their core strength. Children behave well and respond to instructions from staff, who give them praise for their abilities and achievements. This helps to build children's self-esteem and confidence. Children make good progress throughout their time at nursery.

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

• Leaders and staff passionately support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff are knowledgeable about children's individual needs. They work closely with their families and external professionals to prioritise and plan targeted support. For example, leaders and staff proactively ensure that children receive early interventions to prevent gaps in their learning. This means that children with SEND make good progress.
• Leaders and staff build a curriculum around a book each week to support the intention for children's learning. Staff use the information they know about children to assess their starting points. This helps staff to prepare for children's next stage of development. However, on occasion, staff do not promptly support children with the same learning opportunities to extend their learning. At times, children lose focus and engagement and move away from activities.
• Staff support children's understanding of mathematical concepts when children explore different-sized containers. They help children to use mathematical language when they fill the containers and describe how they can feel 'heavy' and 'light'. This helps children to develop positive attitudes in their learning.
• Overall, staff report that they feel well supported. They have routine supervision sessions and have opportunities to access regular training to build on their skills. Leaders actively support staff's well-being through regular meetings and team-bonding activities. However, at times, communication between leaders is not always consistent. As a result, documents and information are not always shared effectively to have readily available.
• Leaders and staff teach children the importance of health and hygiene. For example, before mealtimes children learn how to wash their hands. This promotes children to develop self-care skills. Children make choices of what they would like to eat for lunch from freshly cooked meals. Leaders and staff help children to build an awareness of healthy lifestyles to support their overall well-being.
• Children learn to talk about their feelings. Staff help manage children's needs sensitively and have a flexible approach. For example, children use 'emotion eggs', and staff skilfully interact with children to encourage them to describe how they feel. Staff role model to children using different facial expressions. This helps to support communication and language and the quality of their interactions.
• Parents speak positively about the nursery. Staff keep them well informed about their child's day and the progress they make. Parents praise the nursery for their settling process to help ensure that children have a positive start to nursery. This helps children to feel safe and secure through an effective key-person approach. From this, parents are confident in the support their children receive from staff.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff interactions to provide further opportunities for children and develop their focus and engagement
• develop leadership arrangements for sharing information to build staff's confidence.