Explorers Childcare Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders have developed a curriculum and a range of educational programmes that help children to gain a secure foundation in their learning. They place a strong emphasis on supporting children's language acquisition. For example, leaders developed a language intervention assessment and teaching programme to focus on helping children to make accelerated progress following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leaders and staff prioritise getting to know the children and their families especially when they first start. This includes home visits to gather in-depth information about children and their home-lives. Staff know children very well and children form strong emotional attachments to them. Children enjoy the time they spend with staff. For example, they seek out staff to share a book and a cuddle with them and their friends.

Overall, staff have a clear focus in their planning to help children to understand and regulate their feelings and behaviour. Staff support children to develop their resilience to setbacks. Children develop a can-do attitude and gain good levels of independence. They persevere until they succeed with a task and find solutions to problems. Staff encourage children to develop social interaction skills and specifically plan for children who find this more challenging.

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

• Leaders' self-evaluation is a key strength and they take strategic action to continually develop the service provided and quality of education. They introduce a wide range of new initiatives and reflect on the impact these have for children. Leaders monitor staff practice effectively and feed this into the action plan for the nursery. For example, they have recently provided staff with guidance related to their use of observations to inform teaching.
• Leaders provide staff with effective training that is directly linked to their key priorities. They make good use of staff supervision to set staff individual professional development targets. A recent training focus has helped staff to precisely focus on improving children's language skills. Staff share how they feel well supported and leaders ensure their workload is manageable.
• Partnership working is strong. This includes working with parents and with other settings where children also attend. This helps to provide continuity for children's care and learning. Leaders and staff engage parents successfully in their child's learning and they work together to support children's development. Parents appreciate the in-depth communication about their children. Parents of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) highly praise the support provided.
• An effective key person system is in place. Staff have a strong understanding of child development and use this to successfully analyse their observations of children's achievement and plan for their learning. Each child has individual learning targets and staff consider their personal play interests to inform their planning and teaching.
• The SENCo leads the staff team to provide specialised support for children with SEND. Staff are knowledgeable about how to adapt the curriculum and their teaching to support children at different stages of their development. They work closely with outside agencies to implement the individual support.
• Staff plan a variety of activities for children throughout the day. This includes large group time activities, small group time and independent play. However, the daily routine limits the opportunity for children to make decisions and lead their own play and learning. Some aspects of the daily routine are not matched precisely to the needs of all the children.
• Overall, children behave well. Leaders and staff have recently focused on helping children to link their emotions to colour. However, staff do not consistently set clear expectations for children to fully support their listening and attention skills.
• Staff recognise how to deploy themselves so that children's learning is enhanced in the different play areas indoors and outdoors. Staff join in with children's play and skilfully enhance their learning, particularly to support children's language development. They consistently praise children for their achievements which supports children's confidence and self-esteem.
• Leaders and staff support children's health well and implement effective procedures to promote this. This includes working in partnership with parents, such as to provide healthy lunch boxes. Leaders provide parents with a wide range of guidance and signpost them to the various local services to support children's health and well-being.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• organise daily routines that precisely reflect the needs of the children in attendance to maximise learning throughout the day
• reinforce expectations with the children so they all fully understand the rules relating to the various daily routines to fully support their concentration and attention skills.