Hobby Horse Children's Centre

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show that they thoroughly enjoy going to nursery. They thrive in the positive, happy and homely atmosphere, created by the attentive staff. Children show great delight when they see familiar staff. Children greet these staff members with smiles, hugs and cuddles. Children are excited to celebrate staff's birthdays. Children proudly present cards that they have made, and sing 'Happy birthday' enthusiastically. This all contributes to children feeling very safe, secure and welcome.

Children behave very well. They respond to the consistent messages from staff about acceptable behaviour. Children listen to what is asked of them and show care and respect for staff, each other and resources.

Children benefit from a curriculum with a strong emphasis on developing their speaking and listening skills. Staff understand the importance to children of knowing lots of words and having the confidence to hold meaningful conversations. Staff skilfully thread this aspect of learning through the whole curriculum. Children hear familiar and new words as the play and learn. This good practice is helping to successfully close any gaps in children's communication and language development. Children are developing well into confident communicators.

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

• Staff plan well how they will deliver teaching so that children remember what they have learned. For example, in preparation for commemorating Remembrance Day, staff teach children, very sensitively, about why it is important and what people are remembering. Children then understand why they are observing a two-minute silence, and do so with great respect and dignity.
• Staff provide good levels of support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The manager ensures that additional funding is used effectively to provide the targeted support that some children need to reach their full potential.
• Leaders and staff work well together to clearly identify what they want children to learn during their time at nursery. Staff are then able to plan and teach accordingly. For example, staff working with babies sing number songs, older toddlers learn to recite numbers in order, and older children learn to count, sort and recognise shapes.
• Staff join in children's play enthusiastically. Overall, staff make very good use of these opportunities to extend children's learning and understanding. Occasionally, in staff's enthusiasm, they do not leave enough gaps in conversations and explanations to allow children useful time to think and share their own thoughts and ideas.
• Children are curious learners. They find the learning experiences on offer very interesting. As a result, they focus well and show high levels of concentration.
• Children respond promptly to requests from staff. This is because children understand the routines of nursery life. For example, older children know that when staff ask them to put their hands on their heads, they need to stop and listen. This helps to ensure smooth transitions from one activity to another, and means that useful learning time is not lost.
• Staff are very caring. Leaders and staff understand the importance of the key-person system in helping children to feel settled. The warm and close bonds between children and staff are evident throughout the nursery, and especially so in the baby room.
• The manager and other leaders regularly review what they offer and make meaningful improvements to enhance experiences for children. For example, leaders have reflected on how best to make use of the outdoor space to encourage children to be more physically active. Outside, staff focus on playing energetic games with children. Staff laugh as they run with children and show children how to pause and feel their heartbeat.
• Children are safe. Staff supervise them closely. However, staff have not considered fully how to include teaching about the safe use of technology in the curriculum in order to further enhance children's understanding of personal safety.
• Staff feel very valued. Many have worked at the nursery for a long time and feel very lucky to do so. This adds to the happy working environment. Leaders deploy staff so that less-experienced staff can work alongside and learn from their more-experienced colleagues. This has a positive impact on the quality of teaching.
• Staff place a high importance on building strong and meaningful partnerships with parents and professionals. This helps to ensure a shared sense of purpose in meeting the needs of children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to make the best use of opportunities to encourage children to share their thoughts and ideas, to extend further children's thinking skills
• incorporate teaching about the safe use of technology into the curriculum in an age-appropriate way.