Dar Ul Madinah Rotherham

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are warmly greeted by the caring staff team as they arrive at the nursery. This helps children to feel confident and secure as they enter the setting. Children happily engage in a wide range of play experiences. Staff confidently explain the purpose of each experience and understand how to use them to support children's ongoing learning and development. Communication and language are a key focus and are supported exceptionally well by staff. Staff communicate clearly in English and often repeat what they have said in children's home language. This values the uniqueness of each child, while supporting their understanding and use of English.

Children sensitively learn about the Muslim faith and Islamic values during daily planned activities. They sing along to Arabic songs, and older children recall previous learning as they discuss letters learned in Arabic. While there is a key focus on supporting the Muslim faith, children are also supported to learn about other cultural beliefs. This helps them to learn to value and respect similarities and differences as they learn about the world around them. During other daily planned activities, children are encouraged to speak in English. Staff encourage discussions and support children to learn letter sounds in English. As staff read popular stories to children, they explain the meaning of new words, such as 'hatch'. This helps children to learn these new words and use them in the correct context. These planned experiences support children's communication, language, literacy and understanding of the world.

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

• Staff know children well, which helps each child to continually feel settled and secure. Simple rules and boundaries are sensitively reinforced by staff. This helps children to learn to respect these and behave well.
• For children with potential speech delays, staff repeat words clearly and put words into simple sentences. Staff speak with parents to highlight any potential delays in children's learning, encouraging them to seek external support. This helps to close gaps in children's achievements.
• The progress check at age two is completed and shared with parents. The progress check highlights children's strengths and areas to further develop. However, staff have not considered checking when the child's health visitor review is, to ensure that their check is always completed in time for this. This means that there is the potential for developmental delays to be missed by other professionals should parents have not already followed staff's advice to seek external support.
• Children are encouraged to share and to take turns as they play. Staff plan activities to support children's engagement with others. For example, during outside play, children are encouraged to play ball games together. Staff also re- enact popular stories and songs, where they encourage groups of children to take part. This helps to develop children's social skills as well as their communication skills.
• Children develop their fine manipulative skills during creative activities. They learn to use scissors when cutting snowmen out. They use pens to make marks when colouring. Children also manipulate play dough with their hands. They squeeze, stretch and roll the dough out.
• Staff introduce mathematical language and counting into children's everyday play experiences. During group time, children identify the names of shapes and how many sides they have. Staff then support children to accurately count each side of the shape.
• Staff listen to children, responding to what they have to say. They also ask questions, encouraging children's speech. For example, when discussing snow, staff ask children where this comes from. Children say that it 'comes down'. Staff help children to further develop their understanding and language, as they confirm that it does come down from the sky.
• When staff plan daily group activities, all children are grouped together. This results in the activity not consistently supporting all children's learning in line with their abilities. For example, older children remain focused and are challenged by the questions asked. However, some of the learning taking place is too advanced for the younger children. These children also begin to lose interest as the activity is too long. The younger children do learn positive attitudes to learning as they observe the active engagement of the older children. During other activities, staff provide more-effective learning experiences, which build on each child's prior knowledge and skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure that the progress check at age two is consistently completed in line with the health visitor review so that clear information is shared for the full benefit of the child
• review how planned group-time activities are structured and delivered so that they are developmentally appropriate for each child.