Caversham Nursery School 0-3s

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children at this setting are extremely happy, settled and independent. They are truly inquisitive and actively explore the stimulating learning opportunities available to them to choose from. Children have tremendous fun as they learn through real-life experiences. For example, when children want to make cakes, staff organise a nursery trip to the local grocery shop to buy the ingredients.

Children's behaviour is superb. They show exceptional respect for the environment and their friends. Children radiate confidence and give their best in everything they do. They adore the garden. Younger children skilfully master the small slide before moving on to the challenge of the larger one. Older children expertly ride around the winding track on trikes and scooters. They carefully manoeuvre around obstacles with great precision.

Children's contributions are valued highly by the staff who praise the children's high levels of engagement and perseverance when they play. They readily initiate interesting two-way conversations. For instance, they talk excitedly about the pranks they play on each other for April Fool's Day.

Children become self-motivated as they test out their own interests and ideas. They try hard to balance on tyres and use their arms with success. Staff have high expectations of what children can achieve. Children make exceptional progress from their individual starting points. Children are quick learners and gain excellent foundations for future learning. They listen intently during stories and discussions. Children retain information extremely well and show a very good recall when they answer questions. They are able to talk eloquently about the way characters feel in a story and how these may change depending on the events. Children intelligently relate these feelings to their own experiences.

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

• Staff's understanding of children's learning is inspirational. The extensive range of activities provided is well tailored to children's precise needs, interests and what they need to learn next. Children illustrate this as they create brick towers. They pay close attention to the order of the bricks so that they match the colours on a picture. Staff extend this further as they introduce new vocabulary, such as first, second and third, as the children build their towers.
• Staff pay excellent attention to deepen and broaden children's knowledge and understanding. For example, children learn about eggs and are supported to cook eggs in different ways, such as scrambled and making an omelette.
• Partnerships with parents are highly successful. Staff gain a wealth of information from the parents about what their children can and cannot do. They work extremely closely with the parents and exchange ideas on how to help their children achieve their best. Staff plan a 'focus week' to gather new information about each child from their parents. Consequently, staff know children exceptionally well. This approach is highly effective as staff plan precisely to meet each child's individual needs. Parents speak extremely highly of the success of this approach as they learn new ways to teach their children at home.
• Leaders constantly plan and reflect on their existing outstanding provision. They meticulously identify where improvements are needed, based on their monitoring and observations. Leaders are highly motivated to maintain a strong focus on staff's professional development needs. Recent staff training on quality interactions has enhanced children's development immensely in all areas. Additionally, staff's well-being is a high priority. They participate in 'time to talk' sessions where thoughts and concerns are extremely well supported.
• Staff provide extensive opportunities for children to understand and respect different cultures in the wider world. Children hear words from different home languages, such as Hungarian, and compare these to their own. Children learn about many special occasions in their own life and those of others. For example, children share their experiences of Lunar New Year with immense pride.
• Staff place the utmost priority to develop children's communication and language skills. Children take great pleasure in retelling stories from pictures. They show exceptional recall and fluency as they say the events in 'The Little Red Hen'. This skill is further extended as children replace the main character with a different one. Children then consider how the story might change. This supports their acquisition of a much wider vocabulary and a deeper understanding of stories. Children demonstrate excellent early literacy skills and are exceptionally prepared for their next stage of education. For example, younger children recognise signs and labels in the environment. Older children learn to write letters correctly in their name.
• Children's ability to sing in tune and remember words to their favourite songs is exceptional. Younger children sing 'wheels on the bus' with actions. They use their expert memory skills to offer suggestions for the next verse. All children thoroughly enjoy the repertoire of songs they sing throughout the day.
• Leaders maintain outstanding links with other professional organisations for further support in children's learning. Staff accurately identify gaps in children's learning through regular observations, very early on. These gaps rapidly close with the involvement of professionals and the exceptional commitment of the staff for children to always achieve their best.