Cheadle Kindergarten

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish across all areas of learning in this warm and engaging nursery. They build excellent bonds with staff who are nurturing and supportive. Children are provided with an ambitious and rich curriculum which builds on their interests and existing knowledge. Staff have high expectations for children which enables them to thrive.

Children revel in the opportunity to explore freely between the inside and outside environments. They develop their cardiovascular and gross-motor skills as they crawl through tunnels, kick balls and ride bikes, confidently negotiating space and obstacles. Children take enormous pride in their achievements and are eager to show visitors their creative work. For instance, children create exceptional sunflower paintings with freedom of choice, materials and mark-making tools. They beautifully depict the work of Van Gogh. Their work is both extremely expressive and unique. All staff support children to develop in confidence and character. Children receive excellent opportunities to ignite their curiosity and extend their thinking. Leaders provide children with opportunities to experience awe and wonder every day.

Children benefit greatly from the high quality interactions of staff who model excellent communication and language skills. Staff provide a rich breadth of vocabulary for children whose language develops rapidly. Children show excellent conversational skills as they speak and listen politely, with staff skilfully expanding and recasting with positive reinforcement. This results in children displaying exemplary behaviour.

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

• Staff are highly skilled at identifying children who may need extra support. They use focused training, supported by external professionals, to ensure all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make excellent progress. Funding allocated to these children is used to implement personalised support.
• Children participate in exciting real-life opportunities that successfully build on their experiences at home. For example, children speak of their time on holiday. Staff recognise this important learning opportunity and find innovative ways to incorporate all aspects of holidays into their continuous provision. This approach helps children make rapid progress in their learning and development.
• Staff are skilful in teaching mathematics. They provide various opportunities for children to count, measure and compare. Children confidently count orange segments at snack time, discuss capacity during water play and show intense concentration as they fill containers using different-sized jugs and funnels. Staff are positive role models and children are engrossed in their learning.
• All children show an extremely strong sense of belonging within the setting. Older children re-enact parts of their favourite stories during their fantastic role play with each other and have a multitude of opportunities to develop their talents. Babies enjoy splashing in water with their favourite dinosaurs and joining in with the many familiar songs and rhymes that staff sing to them. Relationships between staff and babies are caring and receptive and all children form secure attachments.
• Children become active members of the local community. For example, they walk to a nearby care home and sing to the residents. This intergenerational activity helps children to develop confidence and a growing understanding of the world around them. Staff excel at challenging stereotypes and children learn to recognise and celebrate each other's differences in an age-appropriate way. Partnership with the local primary school is excellent and children are well supported during transition into the nursery and in their move on to school.
• Parent partnership is exceptional. Parents speak very highly about the nursery and comment on having 'total confidence in the team' and the 'tremendous progress' their children have made. Parents are provided with detailed updates about their children's learning and the interactive family app allows them to share information from home. Innovative ideas such as 'we are stars, watch us shine' and 'bertie bear' allow parents to further support children's learning and development at home. These positive relationships and two-way flow of communication secures the children's ongoing progress.
• The leadership and management of this nursery is excellent. Self-evaluation is both reflective and ambitious. Staff training and focused professional development opportunities are given high priority and this learning is regularly cascaded to the team. Staff comment that leaders 'appreciate everything they do' and feel well supported in their roles. Leaders place a strong emphasis on well-being and recognise that this has a substantial impact on children's learning and development.