High Hopes at Longview

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and ready to start the day in this caring and supportive nursery. Staff are dedicated to giving children the best possible start in life, including the provision of clothing, books and food that are immediately available at the nursery entrance for families needing extra support. Children and parents have warm and enthusiastic conversations with staff as soon as they enter the setting. Babies are calm and happy in the well-resourced playrooms. They benefit from the caring, warm and nurturing approach of staff. Older children are eager to play in the well-provisioned outdoor areas. They work together to build bridges, using crates and planks. Staff know how to allow the children to take risks safely when testing out their constructions by walking across them.

Parents appreciate the support that staff give them at all times, and in particular during the COVID-19 pandemic. They appreciate the information shared regarding their child's development and the advice given about how they can develop their children's learning at home. Parents of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) speak very highly of the support that staff have given them, especially in supporting communication with outside agencies, such as speech therapists or health visitors. Staff have high expectations of children's behaviour. For example, as children share toys, staff remind them to say 'please' and 'thank you'.

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

• Staff know their children well and follow children's interests when planning activities. For example, younger children enjoy playing with toy cars, so staff provide different sizes of vehicles in a paint tray to help children explore the marks they make. This is helping them develop the physical control they will need to start writing.
• Parents are offered a settling-in process that is tailored to the needs of the individual child. Parents comment on how supportive staff were in this process. They were also impressed with the willingness of staff to learn all they could about their child's abilities, interests and circumstances. This was continued even through the COVID-19 pandemic and ensures that children feel calm and ready to learn in the nursery.
• Staff carry out detailed assessments of children's abilities, using their own experience and a variety of recognised tools. These help staff accurately identify the developmental needs of individual children across all areas of learning. Learning opportunities are then planned based on this information, although for the youngest children, these are not always sufficiently well focused on individual children's immediate developmental requirements.
• The management team is passionate about meeting the needs of all children in their care, particularly those with SEND. They rigorously follow programmes that identify needs, develop plans and engage with outside agencies. They also identify opportunities to give children rewarding experiences that may not otherwise be available to them, such as arranging visits with families to the beach or the museum. This gives children wider knowledge and experience of the world around them that helps prepare them for the next stages in their education and development.
• Staff access a wide range of training programmes that ensure they have the knowledge to help the children in their care. For example, staff learn how to identify when the behaviour of children is becoming a barrier to learning. They then know how to provide a range of sensory activities that allow children to acknowledge and regulate their own emotions. This means that children are calm, happy and ready to learn.
• Staff work hard to ensure that all children are being well prepared for the next steps in their learning. For example, older children develop independence when being taken to the primary school canteen next door for lunch. They collect their meals, are encouraged to use appropriate cutlery and clear their own trays away. However, they are not always encouraged to make healthy choices with regard to the food available.
• Children are encouraged to recall previous learning. They discuss what may happen when adding ingredients to their volcano activity based on previous experiments. Staff encourage less confident children to participate. This encourages communication, turn-taking and problem-solving skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure the activities planned for all, and in particular the youngest children, are more clearly focused on their individual developmental needs
• provide more opportunities at snack and mealtimes for children to understand how to make healthy choices about the food they eat.