Goldfinch Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy their time at this friendly, welcoming nursery. The rural setting is extremely inviting. On arrival, children enjoy stopping and watching pigs happily playing in their pens, and looking at tractors and other machinery nearby. These features provide a great start to the day and help to ignite children's interests and curiosity. Children benefit from good-quality teaching, which supports their learning and the good progress they make. Each child's personal qualities are planned for. Staff work hard to make sure all children achieve to the best of their abilities.

Children behave very well. They make friends easily and form close attachments to the staff. These relationships continued well during the COVID-19 pandemic as staff kept in touch with children and parents regularly to check on their well-being and offer support. For example, staff encouraged families to upload their home experiences so that they could continue a strong connection. Staff provided additional resources so that parents could continue to support children's learning at home. When children returned to nursery, they settled back in easily.

Children demonstrate that they feel safe at nursery. They approach staff readily for reassurance and comfort, knowing their needs will be met and staff will respond accordingly. Children develop good self-care skills. They learn to drink from a cup, pour their own milk and use a knife to cut fruit into a given number of pieces. Children move between the rooms confidently. Staff prepare them well for changes and new routines. They communicate effectively and consult with parents about the best needs of their child. Children are encouraged to take part in settling-in sessions with a familiar friend. This supports children well for starting school.

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

• Children take part in interesting and exciting activities that are well matched to their interests and needs. They enjoy new challenges and staff guide them skilfully, giving them time to work things out for themselves. For instance, children are delighted when they find that they can collect water to create a river around their castle. They join long and short pieces of tube and discuss the various heights that the castle walls may reach to. Babies explore coloured yoghurts with paint brushes and are fully engaged as they contemplate the different marks they can make, especially with their feet.
• The nursery's leadership team is effective in driving improvement. Leaders work closely with all staff to reflect on practice and consistently identify new ways to develop the setting. They recognise where further developments can be made to provide the highest quality experiences. For example, they recognise that, occasionally, staff miss opportunities to deepen older children's learning fully during group times, before quickly moving on to another focus.
• Leaders use funding well to support children who need extra help with their learning. Good partnerships are formed with parents, schools and any other agencies involved to make sure every child's learning and development needs are clearly understood and planned for. Children with speech delay are well supported and staff are passionate about making improvements. Adults and children use simple sign language to support those who need further development in their interactions.
• Children benefit from many opportunities to practise physical control and spatial awareness in the large outdoor play space. For example, they learn to carefully step across and balance along different-sized logs. Staff utilise the logs to create a bug corner where children can learn about minibeasts. They enjoy helping to care for plants and flowers and explore water in buckets and jugs.
• Children make friends easily and are kind and respectful to one another. Staff teach them well about the importance of inclusion and children actively celebrate the differences and similarities between each other. For example, each family's cultural background is respected, and staff gain the expertise of parents to plan activities to reflect these within the curriculum.
• Partnership with parents is good. Parents comment that staff are friendly and welcoming. Staff use an online application to share important information and updates about children's developmental progress and to celebrate their 'wow' moments. Staff invite parents to look around each section of the nursery when their child moves to the next room for their age. This enables optimum opportunities for staff to consult with parents to best meet children's needs.
• Each child's personal qualities are planned for. Staff work hard to make sure all children achieve to the best of their abilities.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve teaching to the highest level by ensuring that staff are always responding to what children are doing and saying, and allow them time to embed learning before moving on
• strengthen the planning of group times to focus more precisely on all children's learning to help ensure they remain focused and engaged.