Cathedral View Childcare Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy a warm welcome from the management team and staff when they arrive. This helps them to settle well with their friends. Babies and toddlers thoroughly enjoy singing sessions where they learn familiar songs and rhymes. Staff encourage the use of props to bring the songs and stories to life and to inspire the children's interaction. This helps to support children's communication and language skills and develop their understanding of playing with others. Children have great fun playing in the very well equipped outside play area. They use their imagination, take turns and explore their growing abilities, as they experiment rolling tyres down inclines, chasing bubbles, climbing on frames, balancing on beams or making delicious mud cakes. Children use energy and learn to manage and coordinate their bodies, which helps them to accomplish smaller chosen tasks when playing inside. For example, children engage in threading activities, drawing on the coordination and strength they have developed while holding on and climbing the ladder on the slide.

Behaviour is good and staff provide gentle encouragement, where necessary, to help children learn about taking turns while using toys or larger equipment. Older children are supported to take responsibility for this as they use sand timers to ensure that they share fairly. From a very young age children are taught to manage personal safety and increase their independence. For example, they use safety knives to prepare the snack they select independently, and they learn how to use these utensils with care while chopping fresh fruit or vegetables.

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

• Children develop a keen interest in books and reading stories They learn to join in with repeated phrases and recite the text from their favourite books. This helps to build on children's communication and language skills and their awareness of early literacy.
• Staff assess what children know and then plan ongoing learning opportunities that focus on their interests, to promote their participation. However, staff do not yet ensure that the curriculum is clearly sequenced to help children apply their individual knowledge to new learning in different contexts. In addition, some members of staff do not provide sufficient time for children to listen, contemplate and then share their ideas, to help increase their thinking skills and practise their developing vocabulary.
• The management team continually reflects on practice. They offer guidance to staff where they identify that a little additional support is needed. Any additional funding is used well to enhance resources and provide further training for staff. As a result, all children, including those with additional needs and/or disabilities, make good progress in relation to their starting points.
• The management team make timely and appropriate referrals to external professionals to ensure that children receive the support they need. The progress check at the age of two is well managed to identify children who might need additional support at an early age. Staff also take time to provide the teachers at the school children eventually move on to with the information they need, so each child is supported to continue their learning.
• Children are encouraged to explore their feelings and how to acknowledge these. They learn the importance of being kind, gentle and respectful. Consistent daily routines help children to learn about expectations and boundaries.
• Overall, partnerships with parents are good. Parents comment positively about the nursery and all members of staff. They say that their children are settled and very happy. Parents are delighted with the progress their children make. They confirm that initial and ongoing communications are always consistent, which provides them with pertinent information, such as how they can further support their children's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• further develop the curriculum to ensure that it is sequenced, connected and designed to build specifically on what each child needs to learn next
• support children's critical thinking skills, for example by allowing them time to think and respond to questions.