Crank Nursery Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are excited, motivated learners. They giggle with delight as they conduct various experiments. They work with textures and colours to create different potions in the garden. Pre-school children are amazed to find they can alter the potions by adding different coloured paints and soap flakes. Staff support children's learning well. They skilfully introduce new language and encourage children to express their thoughts and ideas. This helps to support children's critical thinking and processing skills. Children enjoy warm, genuine relationships with staff and their peers. Staff and the management team have high expectations for every child. This reflects in children's behaviour. They behave well and are welcoming, kind and respectful.

Children feel secure at this nursery. They know that staff will meet their needs. Even the youngest children communicate effectively. For instance, babies express to staff when they need a nappy change. They take staff by the hand and lead them towards the changing station. Routines are very well embedded, and this supports children in sharing their needs before they are yet able to speak. Older children enjoy both group activities and their own individually led play. They show impressive levels of concentration. Pre-school children build complicated train tracks and use their imaginative skills to create exciting story lines and imaginary worlds to play in.

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

• The management team, alongside the staff, have developed a challenging, engaging and well-thought-out curriculum. All children make good progress in their development. Staff recognise how to adapt the curriculum to meet the individual needs of every child. They extend challenge for those who are excelling and concentrate on children's individual next steps in learning within activities. This leads to high levels of engagement and concentration from children, who thoroughly enjoy their play and exciting learning. The curriculum is effectively sequenced, which means children recall their previous learning and constantly build on this throughout their time at nursery.
• Diversity is an integral part of the curriculum. Children are enthralled by the opportunities they are given to learn about other cultures. Staff plan meaningful activities to truly delve into the differences in children's lives across the globe. Children share new words in different languages and sample typical foods from various countries. This ongoing learning is fully embedded, and children are captivated by the differences they see in other cultures. This helps to prepare children for a life in modern Britain and supports children to be respectful to all.
• Parents feel supported and value the 'welcoming and safe' atmosphere at the nursery. They comment that their 'children thrive' and constantly shock them with new things they have learned. Parents appreciate the management team and their effective, open communication. This helps them to feel equipped to support their children's development even further at home.
• The management team are passionate and ambitious. They thrive at providing a high-quality experience for children every day and work hard to constantly evolve the nursery. They closely monitor staff to ensure they can offer support, training and guidance whenever needed. Staff appreciate this and comment that their work loads are fair and they are happy in their roles. Some elements of risk assessment are not quite robust enough. For instance, the outdoor play area is easily accessible by the public. The nursery is located in a quiet, rural area. However, the management team have not considered the risk of someone entering the grounds. Importantly, there has been no negative impact on children, and the management team are keen to strengthen this area of risk assessment immediately.
• Babies enjoy nurturing relationships with staff. They reach out for cuddles and giggle out loud as they play peek-a-boo with their key workers. They gaze at their reflections in mirrored surfaces and are amazed to watch the changes in their own faces when they make expressions. At times, babies fall asleep, unplanned, within baby swings. Staff sit directly by babies when this happens to monitor their safety. However, as this is not recommended practice with regards to safe sleep guidelines, children need more support to swiftly adapt to nursery routines, such as sleeping in a cot.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider ways to further strengthen risk assessment outdoors in the case of an unknown person entering the premises
• consider more effective and swift means of helping babies to adapt to some aspects of the nursery routine, such as sleeping in a cot.