Heaton House Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The firmly established ethos of the leadership team places children at the heart of everything at this special nursery. Staff provide an engaging and challenging curriculum. This means the nursery buzzes with activity as children deeply engage in their learning. The carefully planned and sequenced curriculum provides all children with rich experiences. For example, babies practise using small spoons and cups in sensory play to help them to develop the hand-eye coordination necessary for them to feed themselves. Older children know how to use real tools and ingredients to make their own fruit smoothies.

Staff treat all children with the utmost respect. Children are keenly absorbed in the activities staff provide and listen intently to adults and respond to instructions. They are extremely well behaved and demonstrate positive attitudes to their learning. Staff sensitively engage children in turn-taking games. Children squeal with delight as the adults state, 'Ready, steady, go!', and roll balls through brightly coloured paint, with the children observing the marks the balls leave. Leaders have embedded an ethos of promoting children's emotional resilience and regulation through close, sensitive interactions and active listening. Staff support children to understand their feelings and find ways to regulate their emotions and behaviours positively. This values and celebrates the uniqueness of every child. The expert staff team has developed an extremely safe and stimulating environment for children.

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

• Staff and the leadership team are passionately committed to providing the highest quality care and inspiring learning for children. The rich and meaningful curriculum is carefully planned to build on children's knowledge with sequenced learning. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), are making exceptional progress from their starting points.
• Leaders are dedicated to reflecting on and evaluating what they do. They accurately self-evaluate the quality of teaching and learning. Thorough induction and ongoing mentoring are complemented with regular peer-on-peer reviews and supervision meetings. Staff excel in their professional development and feel supported to be the best practitioners they can be.
• Staff are highly attuned to all children, who make exceptional progress in their personal development. Through support from adults, children are confident self-regulators, capable of overcoming conflicts. The promotion of emotional literacy is hugely effective. Through emotional coaching, staff help children to recognise their emotions and offer calming techniques when they feel overwhelmed. Children can articulate how they are feeling and learn how to do things to help them feel calm or happy.
• Leaders promote extensive opportunities for children to explore and try different foods through the nursery's approach to embedding 'food widening' experiences. Children visit their allotment every week to tend the plants and vegetables, bringing produce back to the setting to share. Staff teach children how to grow their own vegetables and use these in their cooking back at the nursery. This helps to support children's understanding of healthy eating.
• Staff support children who are new to the setting extremely well, and their emotional development is a key priority. They reference their training in emotional coaching and safeguarding to develop these relationships and keep children safe. Relationships are a strong theme, and families feel that warm, supportive partnerships are fostered, not just with their child, but with them as parents. Any concerns voiced are responded to fully, with children's welfare given paramount importance.
• Staff utilise a wide variety of activities, toys and books to promote positive images of other cultures. For example, dolls with head scarves, dual language books and songs in other languages are used in the teaching of diversity. Authentic experiences using real objects, tools and equipment help to teach children how to use these objects in the real world and encourage them to make connections between home and the setting. Children have fantastic opportunities to learn about the wider community during trips to local museums, nature walks and library visits. The nursery helps to prepare children for life in modern Britain.
• Parents speak extremely highly of the nursery and the staff. They clearly attribute children's learning to time spent at the nursery and the information they share. They praise leaders for supporting families with additional resources, such as the lending library for books and toys and potty training packs. They feel the nursery is like a 'home from home' and praise the consistently high levels of communication.