Galley Common Childcare Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and well cared for at this warm and friendly setting. Staff and children create meaningful relationships with one another. Children who have recently started to attend are quick to settle, as they receive plenty of cuddles and reassurance from the loving staff throughout the day. Children are confident in their play and direct their own learning. They decide what they want to play with and whether they would like to be indoors or outdoors.

Staff carefully plan activities around the children's prior interests. This ensures that children engage and are happy in their learning environment. Staff research what the children's likes and dislikes are. They are knowledgeable about what the children know and can do already. The staff go to great lengths to acquire this information before the children start to attend the setting. The staff schedule visits to their homes, send out parent questionnaires and invite parents to induction days. This helps children to have a smooth transition from home to nursery.

Staff, including the special educational needs coordinator, support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) well. They promptly complete early assessments and referrals for children. Staff work effectively with external agencies to ensure that the children make the best possible progress.

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

• Children are confident in exploring both the indoor and outdoor environments. They have access to a range of stimulating resources. Children choose to have fun with the water wall. They fill cups of water and use their hands stretched up to pour the water into the top bottle. This strengthens muscles in the wrist in preparation for writing. Children watch in fascination as the water flows into another bottle. They experiment with the different bottles and manoeuvre them accordingly to watch the water race out. Children play well with each other, sharing resources and taking turns. Staff skilfully support the children as they play, asking open-ended questions, such as 'where is the water going?'
• Children enjoy the newly purchased sandpit. They confidently take off their own shoes and socks. 'It's cold', they declare, as they bury their feet into the sand. Children use spades to scoop out the sand and fill up buckets. This promotes early mathematical concepts, such as 'full' and 'empty'. Children delight in finding hidden golden coins in the sand. As they find the coins, they carefully collect them in a small treasure chest. Children share their collection with visitors to have a look. Children are confident communicators.
• Staff provide healthy snacks for the children to access independently. Children help themselves to fresh fruit, toast and a choice of milk or water. A member of staff sits with the children as they eat their snacks and engages children in meaningful discussions. The children enjoy mealtimes at the setting. They all behave well and confidently explore the contents of their own lunchboxes and independently help themselves to their lunch. However, staff do not work closely enough with parents to promote children's healthy diet. Children do not have a healthy selection of food in their lunch boxes.
• Children who are part of story time listen attentively. Staff pause and ask questions, gauging the children's interests. Staff ask, 'who will they find?' Children engage and reply to staff's questions. If they need help staff gesture using hand and arm movements to prompt the children. For example, when there is an elephant on the next page, staff use their arm to make a trunk. The children all shout 'elephant' unanimously. Staff do not support all children, in particular children with SEND to join in with story time. This does not promote all children's communication, language and literacy development to the highest level.
• Staff comment that they feel well supported by the management team. They feel as though the team is an extension of their family. The managers have high regard to the staff members emotional well-being and review this during supervision meetings. Staff receive additional training to suit their interests and passions.
• Parents are happy with the setting. They comment that their children have settled in well. They know what their children are doing throughout the day and are happy with their development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• work more closely with parents to provide further information on the importance of providing healthy and nutritional food for their child's lunch at the setting to promote further children's healthy lifestyle
• strengthen teaching to provide even more support for children with SEND to access all learning activities, specifically story time to support them to make the best possible progress in their communication, language and literacy development.