Iford Bridge Nursery & Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happily and are warmly greeted by staff, who know them well. The nursery focuses on promoting children's personal, social and emotional development to help children learn to make friends and enhance their well-being. Staff model kindness and good manners, and children mirror this when talking to their friends. For example, children apologise and make sure that their friends are okay after bumping into them. This demonstrates that children are developing an understanding of the potential impact of their own behaviour on others. Staff support children's communication skills well. For example, they extend children's language by adding new words as they play and repeat back their speech to support their pronunciation.

Children learn to take responsibility for small tasks to help promote a sense of responsibility and belonging. For example, children help to set up the table for mealtimes, put out the chairs and distribute the plates. Children develop their independence in preparation for school. They learn to put on their own coats, pour their own drinks and use cutlery confidently. Children enjoy fresh air and exercise, which helps to keep them fit and healthy. They develop their motor skills as they balance on equipment and dig in the mud with tools. Children make good progress from their starting points and are well prepared for the next stage in their education, including school.

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

• The provider plans a broad and balanced curriculum and organises experiences that support children to reach the next steps in their development. Staff generally deliver the curriculum well. However, at times, staff are less confident in encouraging children to try new activities to extend children's interests and knowledge even further.
• Staff identify when children might be at risk of falling behind in their learning. They work with external agencies and parents to help close any gaps. For example, some children receive extra small-group support to help develop their language skills.
• Children follow the rules and expectations of the setting. For example, they line up to come inside after playing outdoors and tidy away their toys when asked to do so by staff. Children share the resources and take turns. Staff manage minor disagreements between children well.
• Children develop their literacy skills as they enjoy looking at books independently, turning the pages one-by-one. Staff read stories to children with enthusiasm, encouraging children to consider what might happen next to help them to start to understand the structure of stories.
• Children new to the setting settle very quickly. Staff work in partnership with parents from the outset to find out about children's likes and dislikes and organise settling-in sessions to meet children's individual needs. Parents report that they feel comfortable leaving their children at the nursery, which they describe as a 'home from home'.
• Staff support children to develop their early mathematical skills, in preparation for later learning in school. For example, staff support children to identify numbers on scales and learn when things are full or empty. Children use counting in their play, which staff encourage and support.
• Children learn to take appropriate risks in their play to help develop their self-confidence. Staff teach children the skills they need to do this safely. For example, they show children how to hold out their arms to help them to balance.
• Staff organise many opportunities for children to develop their fine motor skills. For example, children enjoy making play dough, mixing ingredients to make banana bread, doing jigsaw puzzles and making sandcastles. This helps children to strengthen their hand muscles in preparation for early writing.
• Staff's well-being is a high priority. The provider makes sure that staff's workload is manageable to ensure that they have a good work-life balance and that morale stays high. However, the procedures for the monitoring and supervision of staff are not robust. As a result, staff do not know what they need to do to develop their practice further to help ensure that children receive the highest quality teaching.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to more confidently implement the curriculum, with particular regard to adapting practice to develop and extend children's interests
• strengthen the monitoring of staff's practice to precisely identify areas for development to raise the quality of teaching to the highest level.