Conifers Day Nursery KN Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders show integrity and commitment in providing early education that precisely mirrors the needs of children and their families in the local community. This enables each child to thrive and reach their full potential. Leaders and staff have a deep understanding of the children and their families. For example, they place a strong focus on outdoor adventurous learning to complement children's experiences from home. Staff provide children with intentional interactions that ensure that each child engages fully in purposeful play. They understand how to make learning fun, enjoyable and with clear boundaries. Pre-school children learn how to contain their excitement and enthusiasm.

Staff use their expert teaching skills to personalise the strategies they use. Children flourish and are highly engaged in purposeful play and learning. For example, during play, staff challenge pre-school children to recall their previous play and learning. Children make connections and begin to self-assess. Staff recognise that every interaction they provide is a learning opportunity for children. This means that lunchtimes and care routines are used to fully extend children's understanding. For example, staff model the language of sharing and counting at lunchtime as they hand out equipment to younger children and babies.

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

• Leaders have a meticulous approach to self-evaluation. They have recently analysed how children are accessing and interacting with the learning environment and have modified the indoor and outdoor play spaces to maximise children's learning. Leaders have identified that helping children to recall events is a key teaching and learning need. Staff frequently ask children to remember previous learning. Leaders monitor staff's practices at different times of the day, so they have a comprehensive understanding of the provision.
• Leaders ensure that staff at all levels receive personalised training opportunities to enable them all to build on their knowledge and skills. Leaders work with local agencies to focus on training staff on how to best serve the families in the local community. Apprentices receive consistent support to ensure that their interactions are also of a high quality. Leaders support and train key persons to review and implement the individual plans and learning needs of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND).
• Leaders make excellent use of additional funding so that it precisely benefits the children it was intended for. They use all the information they have about children, including learning styles, interests, progress and parents input to decide how to use funding. Leaders also consider children's collective needs to plan strategic enhancements to the provision. This has recently involved developing two rooms to support children's sensory and emotional needs in multiple ways, such as physical outlets and opportunities for quieter reflection.
• Leaders and staff have an expert understanding of child development and use this to construct and manage the curriculum. They have developed their curriculum with a focus on the knowledge, skills and understanding that children need in readiness for school and have broken these down into a precise set of sequential steps in learning. For example, when children have food allergies, staff teach toddlers which colour plate they must have and name the food they must avoid. Pre-school children talk about their allergies and their friend's allergies. Children gain a strong awareness of others and their self-identity.
• Leaders have identified the need to first focus on children's understanding when supporting speaking and listening skills. They have developed a progressive and ambitious sequence of knowledge and skills with the aim of children becoming confident communicators in readiness for school. Staff prioritise providing specific opportunities for children to communicate their ideas. For example, children plan what they will go and play with and use sentences or single words according to their stage of development to explain what they will do.
• Staff use the information they gather from observing children to identify areas of children's development where they consistently show they need further support. They meticulously plan for each child's learning needs. In addition, they identify where groups of children have the same learning requirements and plan daily and weekly teaching focuses to progress them all. Planning accurately reflects children's needs, which results in learning opportunities that consistently engage children and progress their learning.
• Staff understand the diversity of the children and their families who use the nursery. For example, they help children to understand that people around the world eat in different ways, sometimes using a knife and fork or their hands to eat specific types of food. They adapt their mealtimes arrangements to reflect this.
• Staff expertly support children's behaviour. They have a strong knowledge of how to help children to self-regulate and focus on understanding the reasons for the behaviour. This helps them to develop individualised strategies for children that are based on how they learn best. Children consistently show respect for themselves and others. Toddlers show empathy for their friends and offer toys to younger children when they are upset. Older children control their excitement.
• Partnership working with parents is exemplary. Leaders implement an extensive range of strategies to support and engage parents. They provide a wide variety of valuable workshops that are available to all parents in the local area and target the needs of the local children. Parents appreciate the guidance provided to access any additional support they need for their children's specific needs.