Independent Place Nursery Children-First.Info

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive and make rapid progress in this welcoming, nurturing and inclusive nursery. They make effective use of a wide range of activities and resources to promote equality and diversity and children respect the similarities and differences between themselves and others. From the moment they arrive for the beginning of their session, children smile and show superb relationships with the staff team. Babies and children excel and develop excellent confidence and independence in the happy, safe, vibrant, and richly resourced environment. The manager and her staff team plan and implement an inspiring, tailored curriculum, which is highly focused on children's individual needs. Each room in the nursery has planning with clear learning intentions. This supports children to be motivated learners, who are more than ready for school.

Children behave exceptionally well and respond very well to the high expectations staff have for them. Pre-school children take charge of deciding their rules before a baking session, so that they really understand and implement the behaviour that is expected. Excellent interactions and highly skilful questioning encourage children to fully explore their own ideas and make links in their learning. High regard is given to developing children's communication skills. Staff consistently and effectively model language and provide an engaging narrative to children's play, repeating vocabulary and extending sentences.

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

• The quality of education is exceptional. Staff fully engage children in highly stimulating activities and present them with exciting challenges throughout the day.
• The nursery environment is very well planned and organised, so that children have abundant opportunities to engage in open-ended, stimulating play. Staff use the inspiring facilities and equipment to a high standard and children have a very wide variety of environments to explore.
• The gardens are a magical and exciting place for children. They love spending time outdoors, where they independently access exciting and challenging resources that add another level of learning, curiosity, awe and wonder for them.
• Staff make very good use of technology, such as computers and videos, to enhance their teaching. They use it with children to research and investigate the world around them.
• Staff expertly support children to develop their literacy and mathematical development. An example of this was seen in the cooking activity where children learn to follow a recipe and opportunities for mathematical learning are promoted.
• Staff working with babies provide an exceptionally calm and nurturing environment that encourages babies' natural urge to explore. Staff are highly attentive and responsive to babies' needs, as a result, they are completely at ease and content.
• The provider's and manager's vision is inspirational, which leads to exceptional experiences for learning and development, allowing children to make very good progress.
• The setting has a highly effective partnership with parents to provide exceptional support and consistency for the children.
• Staff are outstanding roles models, which fully enhances children's social development and, therefore, their behaviour is excellent.
• Children hear rich language from staff, which fosters their communication, language and literacy skills across all areas of the provision.
• The staff team at this nursery work cohesively to provide high-quality care and education. The manager has extremely high expectations of her staff and, as a result of this clear leadership, the whole staff team engage with enthusiasm.
• The leadership and management team have exceptional processes in place for recruitment, induction, supervisions and appraisals. This helps to ensure that the staff team are highly qualified and receive highly effective support for their professional development.
• Children learn extensively about their local community and wider world. This impacts extremely well on how children perceive age and understand ageing and appreciation of diversity.
• Children enjoy healthy, nutritious meals, which are prepared on the premises. The nursery chef and staff share recipes with parents to encourage them to try the meals at home. Children and parents choose their favourite meals, which are incorporated into the menus.
• Staffs' and children's well-being is given high priority. When they returned after time off, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, leaders put measures in place to help staff feel safe on their return to work. Staff provide very effective reassurance for parents to help their children feel secure and to settle quickly back into the nursery routine.