Dorchester Community Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the setting eagerly and are very much valued and welcomed by the caring, friendly staff. Children behave extremely well and staff have high expectations of them. Staff skilfully help children to play together happily. They provide a broad curriculum that supports children to make good progress. They enable children to follow their interests and develop positive attitudes to learning through their play. For example, children listen attentively to a story about a penguin. They talk with staff about countries where penguins live and the weather is cold. Children like to sort and match objects. They concentrate well and start to develop sequencing skills, for example, when alternating green and blue toy penguins in a line to make a colourful pattern. Children show great interest in farms. They had fun playing in the outdoor farmyard role play area, where they helped to rake up the hay and explored heads of wheat and barley. Staff have changed the arrival and collection arrangements to keep children safe as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. They greet children at the main entrance and are proactive in their partnership with parents to keep them well-informed about their children's activities and learning.

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

• Staff act as excellent role models and give clear emphasis to helping children understand their emotions and those of others. They implement consistently positive behaviour management strategies extremely well. Staff use praise and encouragement exceptionally well to help children develop high levels of self-esteem. Children show great kindness and consideration to others. They wait patiently for their friends to take a turn in a group activity.
• The management team and staff work together effectively as a team and continually reflect on their practice to develop their skills. For example, staff have raised their understanding of appropriate strategies to support children's mental health and well-being.
• Staff promote children's communication and language very well through play. For example, they use role play activities to help children learn about positional language. Children listen well to staff and put toy cups under a shelf or fit the lid on top of a play kettle. Staff encourage discussions well and use questions effectively to extend children's understanding. However, at times, staff do not give children as much time as possible to respond to questions and build even further on their existing vocabulary.
• Children are motivated to learn through the variety of purposeful play activities. For example, they become absorbed using different-coloured paints to create a rainbow picture. Staff extend this activity to support children's understanding of the world and encourage discussion about the weather. Children confidently tell staff, 'when the sunshine is out and it is raining, there will be a rainbow'.
• Staff promote children's good health effectively. Children benefit from often playing in the fresh air and they have fun being energetic outdoors. They help a friend learn to control and manoeuvre a favourite ride-on toy around the playground. Children enjoy nutritious snacks, such as pitta bread, blueberries, bananas and vegan sausages. Staff liaise well with parents to ensure they meet all children's specific dietary needs.
• Children develop their imaginations well. They pretend to be customers in the mud kitchen café and 'eat' a cheeseburger or a pasta dish made of leaves and twigs. Children enjoy buying and selling real fruit and vegetables, such as carrots and broccoli, in the farmer's market role play area.
• Parents speak highly of staff. They say that they are knowledgeable, caring and professional and are always very supportive of their children and family. Parents comment that staff create a secure, safe and nurturing environment for children to develop and thrive.
• Staff encourage children's developing confidence in counting. Children start to recognise the number of dots on a dice. However, staff have not fully considered ways to help children develop their understanding of linking written numerals to quantity, to develop their number recognition skills even further.
• Staff carefully consider the needs of all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They promote inclusion effectively. For example, staff continually review and adapt activities and play areas to enable all children to gain the confidence to participate and learn through their play.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• allow children time to process their thoughts and respond and express their ideas
• make more use of opportunities for children to understand about linking numerals to quantity to develop their mathematical awareness even further.