Colville Community Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happily and are greeted with warm smiles from staff at this well-run nursery. The manager offers an open-door policy. Parents enter the building to drop off and collect their children. This has helped children settle in quickly and feel part of a community.

Across the nursery, staff view children as important members of the nursery community. They treat all children with kindness and respect. Staff seek babies' permission before providing personal care, serving their meals or inviting them to activities.

Children are highly inquisitive and deeply curious. They remain busily absorbed in learning and sensory play. Staff promote children's language and development exceptionally well. They use a mixture of signing and words to communicate with children. Babies confidently assert themselves using gestures, babble and words. Older children use full sentences and confidently repeat complex words, such as 'immiscible' and 'transparent'.

Outside, children are confident to take risks as they play. They show incredible bravery and self-belief. For example, toddlers demonstrate advanced physical agility as they copy skateboard skills modelled by the adults. Babies actively climb in and out of tyres. Babies cruise along, taking bold strides across wooden planks and boxes while supported by adults.

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

• Children manage their own needs impressively well. Older children wash their hands thoroughly before and after eating and playing. They confidently manage their own respiratory hygiene. Children put on their own coats ready to go outside. Walking babies pull out their own chairs to sit at mealtimes. They feed themselves, handling their spoons well.
• Children enjoy wonderful meals prepared by the nursery chef. Their meals include butternut squash, potatoes, fish, fresh fruit and vegetables. There is a no sugar policy at the nursery. Children enjoy their mealtimes and learn to savour the pure flavour of foods. Babies display healthy appetites and are hearty eaters who finish their meals.
• Staff promote children's dexterity remarkably well. Babies confidently roll and stamp real vegetables, such as Pak Choi and broccoli, in paint. Older children squeeze pipettes with precision to add droplets of food colouring into bottles. They enjoy observing change and discovering why oil and water do not mix.
• The reading of books and stories is a big part of life at the nursery. Outside, toddlers are captivated as staff bring stories to life. They point to the characters in the books and and study adult's facial expressions as they listen. Indoors, babies independently turn the pages of hard books. Older children listen to their favourite stories with undivided attention.
• The special educational needs and disabilities coordinator (SENDCo) works sensitively with parents. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive tailored, individual programmes of support to reach their targets. Therefore, all children make the best possible progress from their starting points.
• Effective key-person systems ensure staff get to know individual children extremely well. Staff plans are flexible and adapted to meet children's needs and interests. Children are enticed by the rich range of activities on offer. For example, babies enjoy sensory exploration with pasta, sand and soil. They determinedly scoop floating vegetables using nets during water play. Toddlers engage in limitless imaginary play. They excitedly shine their torches as they explore indoors and hide in their makeshift tent.
• Children enjoy routine visits to the library and local parks. They learn about their neighbourhood's distinctiveness as they visit the market stalls on their walks with staff. Babies knowingly point and smile as they recognise photos of their families. Children learn that there are religions that differ from their own as they visit places of worship. They experience festivals as they participate in events like the carnival, Queen's Jubilee and Easter Bonnet Parade.
• Parents express their admiration for the nursery. They describe it as 'a brilliant environment where their children receive high-quality care.'
• The manager is an expert early years professional and a strong leader. She supportively monitors her staff and affirms the strengths of their practice. Her feedback from staff's observations is constructive. She precisely identifies ways staff can improve their good practice even further.