Girls & Boys Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are confident, happy and well behaved in this nurturing environment. Staff encourage them to be independent and to carry out manageable tasks for themselves, such as finding their peg when they arrive. Recent changes to mealtimes provide children with consistent opportunities to develop this independence. For example, they now help staff make their lunch. Children are learning to make healthier choices and eat a wider range of foods.

Staff implement a curriculum that supports all children to make good progress. For example, children develop their hand-eye coordination by using a range of different tools throughout the day. Staff encourage them to persevere when using tweezers, pipettes, and scissors. Children are keen to have a go at everything on offer, including making their own play dough. Staff ensure that children who need additional support receive extra help during activities and routines. Staff promote a love for reading in the new cosy corners inside, as well as the large reading area outside. Children remember favourite stories and predict what might happen next as they share the story of 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea'. Staff supply real props, including tea pots and cups that allow children to use their imaginations and fully immerse themselves in the story. Staff celebrate children's home languages, which can be seen around the nursery on displays and in books.

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

• Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the manager and deputy attended training to help them support children's emotional well-being. They place high importance on supporting all children to develop their self-regulation skills. Staff are intuitive to children's emotional needs and realise the importance of encouraging children to openly discuss how they are feeling. This has a valuable impact on their future learning.
• Children benefit from a curriculum that builds on their prior learning and experiences. Staff extend children's learning by providing stimulating activities. For example, children take a bus to visit the local park and experience paying the bus fare. At the park, children enjoy looking for wildlife, creating pictures with flowers and having a picnic lunch with their friends. Staff are vigilant in carrying out regular risk assessments to support children's safety. They teach children about risks in the environment. For example, they praise children for remembering to look both ways before they cross the road.
• Staff discuss how they support babies' milestones, such as crawling, cruising, and walking. Staff support babies to develop their core body strength by promoting regular 'tummy time' activities, while older children practise balancing and skipping with a rope. As a result, children make good progress in their physical development.
• Children join in the activities with interest and engage well. Babies are highly engaged in exploring different areas in their newly developed, dedicated environment. All children share lots of laughter together while playing. However, when staff take younger children away from their play for nappy changes in groups, such as before lunch, some are kept waiting for periods with nothing to do. At these times, some children become restless and unsettled.
• Staff are clear and consistent across the nursery with behaviour management strategies and, as a result, children behave well. Staff use lots of praise to encourage and re-enforce good behaviour and teach children strategies to share. For example, children know how to use sand timers when they want to play with a popular resource.
• The special educational needs coordinator works closely with staff, parents and other professionals. For example, staff work with the dedicated speech and language therapist to put targets in place and implement these to help all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, to progress. The manager uses additional funding that some children receive to help meet their individual needs.
• Overall, children benefit from opportunities to develop their mathematical skills. For instance, they count the bricks they use to create tall towers and enjoy singing number rhymes, counting back from five. However, the mathematics curriculum is not fully embedded. Some staff do not consistently extend aspects of children's mathematical knowledge and language, such as exploring the similar properties of simple shapes that some children recognise.
• Staff provide parents with information about the weekly activities and what children will be learning. This enables parents to contribute towards their child's learning and development. Staff provide regular updates through communication books. This helps to keep parents informed about their child's developmental progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review and improve the less effective aspects of the daily routine to minimise the disruption to children's learning and enjoyment
• support staff to embed the curriculum for mathematics in full so that older children have more opportunities to develop their understanding of shapes and mathematical language.