Green Tree Childcare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy attending the nursery and feel safe and secure. Staff greet children warmly on their arrival. Children seek out staff for comfort and reassurance when needed. Staff are caring and soothe children who get upset. For example, they sing familiar rhymes to them. The manager and staff know the children well and have a clear understanding of children's starting points and individual needs. Children are keen to engage with the activities that staff offer. They show their curiosity in exploring different resources. Staff identify children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They put clear plans in place to support these children's individual needs and ongoing development.

Staff provide a calm environment, with clear expectations for children's behaviour. Children benefit from this consistent approach. They are well behaved. Staff give them plenty of guidance, for example, not to run in the room but to use their 'walking feet'. Children receive lots of praise for their efforts. This increases children's confidence.

There is a strong focus on developing children's appreciation for books. Staff read stories to the children with great expression. They show them the pictures and pause at appropriate points for children to recall or suggest what will happen next. Children listen intently to stories and confidently answer questions. They enjoy choosing a book and looking at it on their own.

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

• There has been a change in management since the last inspection. The new manager has worked with staff to develop an ambitious curriculum that is understood by all. She has a positive and proactive approach. She is committed to providing good quality education and care. There is a strong focus on self-evaluation. This has led to action plans to address the actions raised at the last inspection. For example, all staff have taken part in safeguarding training. There are further plans to develop the outside areas for children and to implement a lending library so that children can borrow books to take home and share with their parents.
• Overall, staff plan activities to support children's learning. Staff working with toddlers and pre-school children provide opportunities where children learn to share resources. For example, toddlers share resources when playing with the water. Pre-school children cooperate to name the initial sounds on alphabet jigsaw pieces. They place them in the correct slots. However, staff are not always confident about what they want children to learn from some of the activities.
• The manager has introduced supervision meetings for all staff. Staff's well-being is discussed, along with their key children and their practice, using the observations that she has carried out on them. She has also introduced peer-on-peer observations. This helps everyone to evaluate their own practice and to give advice to help to raise the quality of practice.
• Staff support children's emerging communication and language well. They repeat sounds and model words to encourage children's speaking skills. They involve older children in conversations throughout the day. Staff have recently learnt some sign language. This is to help those children who experience delay in their communication and language, and benefits all children. Staff share the sign of the week with parents so that they can use them at home with their children.
• Children of all ages enjoy physical activity in the garden. They ride on toys and take managed risks, such as coming down a ramp. Babies smile and bounce when a member of staff encourages them to crawl through a tunnel. They pull themselves to standing using the fence. Staff understand how to promote babies' developing movements. For example, they place non-mobile children on their tummies and put resources slightly out of reach for them to try and reach.
• Parents and carers are highly complementary about the setting. They comment on the information that is shared with them daily, either verbally or by the online application that they can access. They appreciate that stay-and-play sessions have been introduced. This means that they can observe their child in the environment where they are cared for. Parents praise the staff and how they care for their children. They say that they can see a difference in the setting since the last inspection.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• implement action plans and coaching and mentoring of staff to achieve the setting's vision
• support staff to strengthen the delivery of planned activities to include all identified learning intentions for children.