Footprints Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled in the care of the nurturing staff. Children have built secure bonds with their key person and enthusiastically engage in play and learning. Children are confident, and they show high levels of self-esteem.

There is a well-thought-out curriculum, which staff use to encourage children's curiosity and build on their independence. This successfully supports children in their future learning, including moving on to school. Younger children learn to share and take turns. Staff support children to count and introduce colours as they play. Children thoroughly enjoy role play, exploring the resources. Staff get involved in children's play, as they pretend to eat the food that the children prepare for them in the play kitchen. They introduce new words such as 'stethoscope' as children role play being a doctor.

Staff act as good role models, and children follow their lead by behaving well. Older children have many opportunities to develop their physical skills. They thoroughly enjoy engaging in activities, such as Zumba. This boost children's self-esteem and improves body awareness and coordination.

Staff work well in partnership with parents. They ensure that they gather crucial information about children's individual needs when they first start at the setting. This helps them to provide tailored care and support. Parents report very positively on the excellent support they receive and are very happy with their children's progress.

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

• Staff support children's communication and language well. They use books to engage children's interests and extend their vocabulary. As a result, children develop a love of books and stories and enjoy sharing these with staff or their friends. Babies and toddlers babble as staff point to the animals in a story and make the animal sounds. Older children join in with familiar phrases from a favourite story and turn the pages carefully as they look at books together.
• Children enjoy playing with water. They begin to learn about volume and capacity as they pour water from different-sized vessels and compare. Outside, they learn to fly frisbees and smile and laugh as they skilfully master the skill of hula hooping. They experiment to see which small vehicle fits into different-shaped piping and have lively conversations what they could do to 'stabilise' each piece of piping against the wooden pallet. This helps to develop their problem-solving skills.
• Staff engage most children well when playing outside. Children develop their physical skills as they use ride-on toys to manoeuvre themselves around a track.
• However, at times, staff do not interact as effectively with those children that need more support to join in with activities.
• Babies and toddlers are curious to explore the environment. They sit on ride-on toys and build with bricks, as staff get down to their level and engage with them. Babies and toddlers pull themselves up to cruise around the furniture, and some children use push-along toys to aid their walking. However, there are lots of resources on the floor, which limits opportunities for children to practise these skills easily to support their progress further.
• Staff provide good opportunities for children to problem solve and try out their ideas. For example, children play a game to catapult beanbags into the air to see how fast they can travel and how far they go before landing on the ground. They explore using different items or experiment with placing the catapult in different places to see if they can make the beanbags travel further.
• Children excitedly take part in a range of learning experiences, which extends their understanding of the world. They enjoy regular visits to a local care home where they share their experiences with the residents.
• Leaders monitor staff's practice and, alongside the local authority, provide support and training to develop and increase staff's knowledge, understanding and skills. Leaders value and nurture staff's well-being. Staff confirm that they feel valued and well supported.
• Staff's training has a positive impact on children's experiences. For example, after training about how to play with children, staff ask more open questions to encourage children to think. As a result, children concentrate and stay engaged longer in activities.
• Staff support children to follow thorough hygiene routines. Children wash their hands before mealtimes and after playing outside. They enjoy home-cooked meals that are prepared by the nursery management and, through discussions with staff, learn about healthy eating.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• make better use of planned activities outside to engage all children to focus more and fully benefit from the learning opportunities
• provide the younger children with more consistent opportunities to practise the skills that are needed to reach their next steps in learning more swiftly.