Cherry Lodge Childcare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

This nursery offers a warm and friendly environment where children are eager to attend. On entry, children are excited to hang up their coats, find their key person and meet with their friends. Children have built warm attachments with staff and enjoy the high levels of care and nurture that staff provide. Staff endeavour to make every day special for children.

The curriculum is ambitious for all children. Staff are focused on identifying children's individual interests and developmental needs. They offer learning opportunities that engage children and support them in being active learners. At lunchtime, younger children are supported to use cutlery while older children are encouraged to self-serve their own lunch and drinks. Children enjoy being given the responsibility of small 'jobs', such as washing their plate after lunch. Children demonstrate they are settled and independent.

Staff are positive role models and take into consideration children's emotional well-being. They celebrate children's birthdays and help children to see they are unique and special. In addition, they encourage children to share resources and consider the needs of others. As a result, children initiate their own play and independently help one another as they put on their coats. Children's behaviour is good.

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

• Staff have high expectations for all children and plan an interesting curriculum. This approach helps children to be inquisitive learners and access activities with enthusiasm. Children enjoy making marks with brushes in icing sugar, use spoons to remove fruit suspended in blocks of ice and giggle loudly as they bathe dolls with lots of bubbles. These activities help children to build their physical skills and solve problems.
• Staff plan opportunities for children to develop in all areas of learning. Children use puppets and character wooden spoons to retell stories, which helps to develop their literacy skills. Overall, staff are good at asking questions to support children's communication and language. However, at times, they ask questions and do not always check children's understanding before moving on to the next question. This means the intent of the activity can occasionally lose focus.
• Staff meet the needs of all children well, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff are proactive in forging partnerships with other professionals and ensure that any funding for children is spent wisely to support children to make the best possible progress they can. The quality of education is good, and children make secure progress from when they initially start.
• Staff support children's understanding of the local community. Children have recently taken part in road safety week and enjoy visits from the fire service. In addition, they enjoy outings to the local library and elderly care home. These experiences help children appreciate the similarities and differences of people in the local community, as they develop their understanding of the world.
• Parents are complimentary about the care children receive. Staff invite parents to be part of processes of assessment, share meaningful information and promote home learning. Parents offer suggestions to support children's learning, such as suggesting local charity days that children can take part in. Parents are invited into nursery to talk about their job roles. These partnerships support a consistency of care.
• Partnerships with other professionals are good. Staff work with a range of professionals, such as speech and language therapists and professionals who support children with SEND. As children prepare to leave for school, staff invite teachers into nursery to share information about children's developmental needs. Staff help children to be excited and ready for their next stage in learning. These partnerships have a positive impact for children as they receive the support they need as they prepare to move to school.
• The nursery is well led and managed. The management team reflects and makes changes to practice to help continually improve the service it provides for children and families. Following a notification of a notifiable incident, leaders have undertaken a comprehensive review of security measures and have taken swift and effective action. All staff understand the newly implemented procedures.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to consistently check children's understanding before introducing new concepts, so that learning is always precisely sequenced.