Coundon and Leeholme Early Years Centre

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show that they feel happy and confident in this welcoming nursery. Dedicated leaders are intent on providing all children with a safe, happy and secure environment. Children form close relationships with staff. For example, they run to greet staff excitedly with outstretched arms as they come into the room, wanting to cuddle them. Children receive an abundance of praise and encouragement for their achievements. This helps to boost their self-esteem. Children confidently make independent choices on the direction of their play and are enthusiastic to learn. They engage in adult-led activities and child-initiated play experiences and make good progress from their starting points in learning.

Staff are good role models and have high expectations for children's behaviour. Children's behaviour is excellent. They play and work together harmoniously. For example, as children wrap presents in a pretend Santa's workshop, they discuss the shapes and sizes as they cut the wrapping paper and tape. They use their imaginations to build a robot from the packages. Children discuss how many eyes, ears and mouths the robot will need. They are proud to show staff and visitors their 'robot'. Children show exceptionally high levels of concentration and motivation as they spend considerable amounts of time at their chosen activities.

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

• The manager and staff have high expectations of what they want children to learn. For example, they support children to develop their independence and social skills, as they feel that these skills have been impacted due to the COVID- 19 pandemic. Children learn to wipe their noses and dispose of tissues appropriately in the bin. They wash their own hands, set the table at lunchtime and eat independently using cutlery.
• Children develop good physical skills. For example, babies become confident when moving around the carefully considered environment. Babies pull themselves up using furniture and climb up the small steps to the slide. They delight as they wiggle themselves into position and slide down the other side.
• Children are exposed to a wide range of literature. Babies independently seek out and read sensory books. They turn the pages and point to the illustrations. Staff sit with older children and read to them with energy and enthusiasm. This sparks children's interest in stories and rhymes.
• Staff provide engaging opportunities throughout the nursery for children to practise mark making. Babies enjoy making patterns in a variety of ways, such as making marks in foam. Older children delight in using paintbrushes in the snow to make shapes as they play outside in the snowy weather. This helps children to use different tools, to build on their hand-eye coordination.
• Children have fun exploring the texture of dough. They roll, squash and manipulate the dough, which helps to strengthen the small muscles in their hands in readiness for early writing. Staff introduce counting and mathematical language, such as 'big' and 'small'. Children learn the names of new and interesting dinosaurs as children decide to make 'coats' for the toy dinosaurs.
• Parents are highly complimentary about the nursery. They comment that the nursery staff are 'like a family'. However, recent changes to the staff team mean that they are not all sure who their child's key person is. This means that information at handover about what children have been doing is not shared as precisely as it could be. Nevertheless, staff support parents to continue with children's learning at home. For example, by using an online system.
• Staff appreciate diversity and differences in people in the community. They organise regular outings and visits to enrich children's learning. For example, children visit the war memorial following Remembrance Day and talk about the significance of poppies. This helps children to feel valued and develop their understanding and tolerance of others.
• The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) works extremely effectively with children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who require additional support. She works closely with parents and other professionals to meet children's individual needs. She goes above and beyond to keep in touch with them. Therefore, children continue to get the help they need.
• The manager is reflective in how she evaluates areas of the nursery to identify changes that can be made. Staff benefit from regular supervision meetings to help improve their practice. However, the manager recognises that professional development is not as precisely planned to help staff continually raise their knowledge and understanding even further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the key-person system even further by ensuring that any changes are swiftly communicated to parents
• precisely plan for more professional development opportunities to raise staff's awareness and understanding even further.