Hackness and District Under Fives

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide a warm, nurturing environment for children where their well-being is given the highest priority. Children are happy, well mannered and friendly towards each other. Staff are calm and caring. They model expected positive behaviours. For example, staff and children support each other when they are upset. Children are confident and independent. This is built into the routines of the day to give children plenty of practice. For example, children pour their own drinks at snack time, try to put on their outdoor clothes and choose where they would like to play.

Children make steady progress. There is a balance of child-led and adult-led activities. Outside, children develop their own play in the forest. Inside, staff plan activities that help children to learn and develop their understanding across all areas of learning. Children enjoy baking, playing on the interactive whiteboard and taking part in other group activities.

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

• The leadership team has a positive approach to addressing weaknesses in practice, and staff are well supported. However, there have been considerable changes at management level. This has left gaps in the manager's knowledge of the Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage and some confusion about management's roles and responsibilities. While this has resulted in breaches to requirements, the breaches have had minimal impact on the smooth running of the provision.
• Staff help children to develop their communication and language skills. They use books, songs and rhymes to support language. Children are given the time to respond to questions, and staff model language effectively. However, staff's interaction during activities can be inconsistent. There are missed opportunities to introduce children to a broad range of new vocabulary. For example, while outside, staff do not name the types of trees or refer to the different sounds in the forest. Baking activities cover basic vocabulary. Nonetheless, staff miss the opportunity to talk about weighing and measuring or how print carries meaning on a recipe card.
• The implementation of the curriculum is variable. At times, staff help children to talk about similarities, differences and what they can recall. On other occasions, leaders are unclear on what they want children to learn. For instance, in the forest, staff support children's well-being and physical development. Children confidently take calculated risks, such as climbing and sliding down a muddy slope. However, staff are unclear on how to promote all areas of learning effectively. This means that children do not make the same good progress across all areas of the curriculum. That said, children have great fun during forest school activities. They delight in splashing in puddles, hiding among the trees and painting with mud.
• Staff create meaningful routines that help children to feel secure and promote their learning. For example, children use the interactive calendar to discuss the days of the week, the months and seasons. They excitedly look out of the window to determine what the weather is like and talk about the clothes they need to wear in the forest.
• Staff successfully help children learn about numbers during short group sessions that focus on their number of the week. They recognise familiar numbers and begin to understand what they mean. Staff then follow this by singing 'Five Little Men in a Flying Saucer', with children 'flying off' to wash their hands ready for lunch.
• Families are invited to attend bespoke settling-in sessions. These last as long as children need to feel secure. Parents say children thoroughly enjoy attending the setting. They particularly like that their children love playing in the outdoors. Children agree, stating that being in the forest is their favourite activity. Staff maintain good levels of communication with families through an online platform and termly newsletters. Parents say that children develop good social skills and that their increasing confidence and independence are 'by far the biggest benefit'.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure that all those with management responsibilities have a full understanding of the statutory framework, particularly the safeguarding and welfare requirements
• build on the opportunities to extend children's communication and language development further, for example, through consistent quality interactions
• be more precise about what they want children to learn during planned activities to clearly establish what children will achieve in each area of learning so that this can be more easily shared with staff.