Eco Montessori Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy their time at this home-from-home setting. Staff show genuine care over children's welfare and take time to listen to their views, news and ideas. This helps children to feel that their contributions are valued. Staff working with babies are warm and nurturing. Babies demonstrate that they feel safe and secure as they hold out their arms for cuddles and drift off to sleep while being gently soothed by staff.

Staff skilfully incorporate early mathematics into engaging activities. For example, pre-school children sit together in the garden and wait eagerly for their turn to pick a toy animal from staff's 'special' box. Once children make their selections, staff introduce positional language and give children instructions to follow. Children have fun as they follow staff's directions and place a toy fish 'in' the water, a pig 'under' a chair, and a triceratops going 'down' the water slide. This prepares children well for their next stage in learning.

Children behave well. Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and implement the rules with consistency. Staff are excellent role models. They are deeply caring, responsive and respectful. Children replicate the behaviours they see from staff within their own play. For instance, during mealtimes, children organise each other, making sure that those who have been waiting longest have the next turn. This helps children to learn about democracy.

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

• Managers and staff work very well together and create a warm and inviting environment where children learn to be curious. Managers provide staff with regular opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills through regular coaching and training opportunities. For example, staff working with babies complete safer sleep training to help ensure babies' safety. Staff comment that they feel supported and valued by managers.
• Overall, children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, receive quality interactions that promote their developing communication skills well. For example, staff working with toddlers use familiar stories to introduce two-word sentences. Toddlers concentrate intently as they listen to the story and call out the words to describe each animal, such as 'purple cat' and 'blue horse'. Staff working with babies support their early language through singing songs and simple chatter. However, they do not always model language at prime opportunities, such as during exploration. This means that not all children have the best opportunities to become highly effective communicators.
• Children have incredible opportunities to learn about the world around them through engaging and thoughtful experiences. For example, pre-school children learn about the properties of plants as they 'peel' petals from flowers. Staff support children to extract colours from petals and leaves by placing them in between pieces of fabric before 'bashing' them with a hammer. Children show fascination as they watch the dye from the petals transfer onto the fabric to create prints. Children learn that 'chlorophyll' gives the petals their colour.
• Staff prioritise developing children's independence from the very beginning. This helps to provide children with essential life skills that prepare them very well for their next stage in learning. For example, babies and toddlers learn to wash their hands and feed themselves through simple sequences that build their skills over time. Older children set up communal eating areas. They count the number of children present before setting out the corresponding number of plates, cutlery and cups. Children skilfully pour their own drinks and use tongs and forks to serve themselves healthy and nutritious home-cooked meals.
• Children have limitless opportunities to develop their physical skills. This helps them to develop their motor skills and a love of being active. Children develop their balance as they jump from one tree stump to another. Staff provide children with guidance as they challenge themselves while thinking about their safety. For example, children learn to lift their trousers before they leap so they can check their foot position. This helps develop children's understanding of how to keep themselves safe as they gain new skills.
• Staff work in partnership with parents effectively. They share information regularly through their online app and daily handover meetings. Staff use a range of strategies to extend children's learning at home through their child and parent lending library. However, managers do not make the most of the arrangements in place to share information with other settings where children also attend. This means that some children have a more consistent approach to their learning across all environments than others.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen partnerships with other settings that children attend, providing children with a joined-up approach to help maximise their learning opportunities across all environments
• provide babies with consistently high-quality interactions that enable them to make connections between language and meaning.