Children 1st @ Chesterfield

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children of all ages spend a large amount of time playing outdoors. Staff closely supervise children as they use large play equipment. Pre-school children develop their coordination and strength in their legs and arms as they play on tyre swings. They demonstrate that they understand how to use the weight of their body to make the tyre spin around. Babies have their own garden space where they can safely crawl and walk. They smile and giggle as they shake and bang instruments to create noise. Staff wrap babies up warmly and gently settle them to sleep in prams outside.

Children are creative and use their imaginations as they play together in the mud kitchen. Staff encourage and support them to take turns with baking equipment. They provide a gentle reminder when children struggle to share. Children work together to make 'mud cookies'. They talk about cookies being a special treat because they have a lot of sugar in them, which is bad for their teeth. Singing can be heard throughout the nursery. Babies cuddle with staff as they sing nursery rhymes. Toddlers join in with the actions to familiar rhymes. Staff encourage children to develop a love of books. Babies show an interest in the pictures. Toddlers listen intently as staff read familiar stories to them. Pre-school children confidently talk about the characters and events in their favourite books.

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

• All staff receive good support to continually develop their professional knowledge and skills. The management team place high value on the staff that work at the setting. They recognise and reward the strengths in practice that individual staff have. They encourage these staff to mentor and share their skills with others within the team. Staff comment that they feel valued and well supported in their roles.
• Staff promptly recognise the signs that children may need additional help or support. They work alongside parents and other professionals, where gaps in children's learning are identified, to implement targeted support to help children make the best possible progress. Children's key workers ensure that all staff who work with children understand their individual care and development needs.
• Parents comment that they are well informed about the time their child spends at the nursery and how their child is developing. Information is shared with them via an online app. Parents know what their child has eaten and when they have slept as well as what skills the staff at the nursery are supporting their child to develop. Parents comment that their children are happy at the nursery. They value the care given to their children by the attentive staff.
• The manager and staff structure the curriculum to support and build on what children know and can do. Staff place an emphasis on supporting children's personal, social and emotional development. They encourage children to learn how to resolve conflict and to recognise and manage their emotions. When children fall out staff give them the time they need to calm down and think about their behaviour. Older children are confident to express how they feel. This includes expressing when they are happy, sad, angry, or frustrated.
• Staff provide activities to give children the opportunity to take part in experiences beyond those that they often have at home. Babies crawl and sit in large trays of paint, exploring the texture of the paint with their hands. Toddlers have daily opportunities to get messy and use their senses to learn as they play with foam, paint, sand and water. Pre-school children use their imagination as they paint pictures of the people they love.
• Pre-school children get excited as they spot butterflies flying past the window. Staff encourage them to recall and talk about when they kept caterpillars at the nursery. Children recall that the caterpillars made chrysalises and eventually turned into butterflies. However, children's knowledge of the world around them is not consistently supported. When children ask staff questions which they do not know the answers to, staff make up the answers. They do not always provide children with the correct information.
• Less consideration is given to the implementation of the curriculum for mathematics. Staff do not make the best use of opportunities that arise from children's play to encourage and support children to develop and build on their use of number, shape and measure.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure staff provide accurate information in response to children's questions
• support staff to deliver the curriculum for mathematics effectively, to enhance children's understanding of number, shape and measure.