Fordfield House Nursery & After School Club

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settle quickly in the nursery. They are motivated to learn and explore with their friends and with the attentive staff. For example, babies and very young children feel play dough. They listen intently to the words staff use to describe what they are doing, such as 'squeeze' and 'stretch'. Staff praise children when they have a go at repeating the words, contributing to their expanding communication and language development.

Children take advantage of the outdoor environment. For example, children jump in puddles with great delight, watching how high the water reaches up to their wellington boots. Others collect water in pans and cups before announcing to staff that they are going to 'cook' in the mud kitchen. Children spend time in the nursery allotment. They learn about the fruit and vegetables they grow and eat, contributing to their recognition and appreciation of a nutritious diet.

Children enjoy challenges, such as negotiating an obstacle course. Before they begin, staff encourage them to feel their chests to check their heart rates. Children compare the changes before and after exercise, helping them understand important facts about their bodies. This contributes to children's growing awareness of making healthy choices.

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

• The owner of the nursery has tremendous drive and passion to ensure that children are cared for in a stimulating environment, helping to fuel children's learning. Leaders share a strong ethos: to foster a nurturing and respectful environment in which children learn and develop. Staff demonstrate this through their positive interactions with children. Leaders embrace opportunities to make continual improvements throughout the nursery, which frequently stems from recognised research. The provider opens opportunities for parents to pay for additional activities, such as on-site swimming lessons with a qualified instructor.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported effectively. Staff work closely with parents and external agencies to help ensure that children receive the most appropriate care, resources and support they need, both in the nursery and at home. When the time comes for children to move on to school, staff ensure that all the information they have gathered about children is passed on to the most appropriate staff at the new school, helping to make transitions as smooth as possible.
• Children quickly form strong bonds with their key person. This contributes to children's growing confidence and sense of security in the nursery. Working patterns enable key persons to both greet children when they arrive at nursery and take them back to their parents and carers when they leave at the end of the day. This helps to quickly establish good partnerships between parents and nursery staff. Additional information is communicated through a secure electronic application, allowing parents to find out even more about what their children have experienced and enjoyed during their day, triggering further conversations and learning at home.
• Staff support children's learning through a wide range of experiences reflected in planned activities and children's self-chosen play. Managers and staff introduce topics and themes, helping to capture children's imagination and interest. This helps them learn about the world around them. For example, staff talk to children about holidays. Children investigate items in a suitcase and decide that they could go to a beach. However, not all staff have a clear plan of how to link activities to what each child needs to know and understand next in their sequence of learning and development. As a result, some staff do not consistently make the best use of activities to optimise children's individual progress.
• Generally, staff help children to manage risk in their play. However, at other times, staff do not consistently support children to identify when or how to take responsibility to help keep themselves and others safe. For example, when older children come inside from the garden, they remove their boots and shoes, leaving them in doorways and areas where others are playing.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to focus more precisely on what each child knows and needs to learn next when they plan activities, helping children make the best possible progress
• support staff to consistently encourage children to contribute to keeping themselves and others safe through taking responsibility of where they leave resources and possessions.