Cornerstone Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled. Staff provide a warm and welcoming environment where all children form secure attachments. Staff interact well with children and respond positively to them. Children are delighted to come into the nursery and quickly become engrossed in their play. They confidently make choices from a good range of resources and play materials. They are inquisitive and enthusiastic to learn.

Children behave well and are polite, kind and caring. Good relationships between the staff and children are evident. Children feel safe and secure in their care. Staff act as positive role models. They provide guidance and effective strategies to promote children's positive behaviour and well-being.

The dedicated manager and staff share consistently high expectations for every child. They are committed to providing an inclusive environment where all children and their families are welcomed. Staff work very closely with parents and other professionals involved in children's care. They regularly liaise with them to seek advice, review children's progress and set them learning and development goals. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those learning English as an additional language, make good progress from their individual starting points.

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

• Children have rich learning experiences that help them to develop skills essential for their future education. Children of all ages have access to a good variety of books. They listen with interest to familiar stories and predict what might happen next.
• Overall, staff demonstrate a good understanding of how children learn and develop across the seven areas of learning. They use assessment well to identify what children already know and can do. However, they do not consistently use this information to precisely plan activities and respond to individual children's learning needs.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Staff effectively gather information from them about what children can already do on entering the setting. This enables them to plan for children's learning from the outset. Parents report favourably about the setting and how well staff communicate with them about how their children are progressing.
• Children have a positive attitude to learning. They manage their feelings and behaviour well. Staff have implemented effective strategies to support children who find it difficult to regulate their behaviour. Children recognise the need to take turns and share and they respond positively to staff.
• Overall, staff actively promote children's communication and language skills. Children enjoy singing along to favourite songs and rhymes and enthusiastically join in. However, occasionally, some staff do not use every opportunity to encourage children to participate in conversations appropriate to their stage of development.
• Staff provide children with a rich set of experiences to promote their understanding of the people, families, and communities beyond their own. For example, children learn about different types of families and make links to their own experiences. Older children talk confidently and recognise the similarities and differences between their family and others.
• The manager monitors the quality of teaching well. She provides staff with effective support to develop their good teaching skills further. However, there is scope for further development in helping staff to focus their teaching more precisely on what children need to learn next.
• Children are encouraged to adopt healthy and active lifestyles. This is evident when they engage in daily opportunities to play outdoors. Staff also talk to children about the importance of eating healthy foods and having a balanced diet.
• Children who are in receipt of additional funding are supported well. They are developing the skills they need for their future learning, including starting school. Managers use additional funding to support children's unique needs. This helps to promote a consistent approach for children in preparation for their next setting.
• Leaders continually reflect on ways to improve the provision. They value the views of parents and welcome their suggestions on how they can support their children further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance how staff planning focuses sharply on what children need to learn next in order to inform how activities are tailored to support children's individual needs
• refine staff supervisions to develop staff's knowledge of how to focus their teaching to support children's individual learning needs more precisely.