Innisfree Child Care Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a happy, home-from-home environment where children feel confident and relaxed. Children interact kindly with their friends, supported by staff who play alongside them. Relationships between staff and children, including babies, are warm and positive, and there is lots of laughter, fun and cuddles at the nursery.

Communication and language is a particular focus throughout the setting. Great care is taken to assess and track children's communication and language skills in order to give them the best possible support. Staff skilfully engage children in conversations as they play. For example, children are building a house in a construction area. Staff introduce new and useful vocabulary, asking children what 'materials' they are going to use and teaching prepositions such as 'under' and 'over'. They give children time to reply to questions and listen carefully to their answers. This supports the development of children's early language well.

Staff and leaders have reflected on the very best way to support children at times of transition, such as when they move room or key person. Key persons gather lots of information about their key children. This includes information such as children's communication and language development, next steps and emotional well-being. They then share this with other staff and take time to discuss each individual child. This ensures that staff are able to provide tailored care and meet children's individual needs.

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

• Since the last inspection, leaders and staff have worked extremely hard to address the actions raised. The leadership team and staff have worked closely to identify clear targets for improvement. This has helped to strengthen practice and has enabled leaders and staff to make positive changes.
• Staff are keen for all children to do well and make good progress. Overall, leaders and staff plan a well sequenced curriculum. They carefully assess children on an ongoing basis and plan activities according to their next steps. Staff successfully deliver activities that support children's progress effectively. However, some staff are not always fully clear about how best to implement some aspects of the curriculum. At these times, children's learning is not built on as precisely as possible.
• Staff encourage children to develop some independence skills through daily routines, such as pouring their own drinks and putting their own coats on. Overall, transitions between activities run smoothly. However, some snack and lunchtime routines are not as well considered. This has an impact on the attention that staff can provide to children. At these times, some children become distracted and lose focus.
• Staff are excellent role models. They speak kindly and politely to children, and in turn, children are helpful and well-mannered to their friends and other adults while at play. For example, children play cooperatively in a kitchen role-play area. They take turns to slice up a pretend cake using a pizza cutter, kindly passing the cutter to their friends when they have had their turn. This shows the respectful relationships between children, their friends and staff.
• Children's physical skills are well supported in the outdoor space. Children enjoy working together with huge blocks to build a giant house, supported and encouraged by the enthusiastic staff. They roll cars down a ramp and develop their fine motor skills when playing in a tray of sand. However, the same consideration is not given to all aspects of the curriculum outdoors. This means that children who prefer to learn outside are not fully supported to do so in their preferred learning environment.
• Staff report that they feel well supported by leaders. They attend regular supervision meetings with leaders where they discuss their areas of strength and development and any further training required. Leaders gather feedback from staff about their well-being in order to provide them with the best possible support. Staff say that they enjoy working at the nursery and that there is a strong sense of teamwork. Staff work together to identify strengths of practice and where they would like to make further improvements in the future. This ensures that the setting continues to develop and improve.
• The manager and staff build effective relationships with parents and involve them in their children's learning. Parents have access to an online application and can see regular updates and photos of what their children are doing. Parents report that staff and leaders are warm, approachable and helpful. They value the guidance they receive from staff to help support children's progress at home, such as with toilet training.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the organisation of routines so that all children are supported to become fully involved
• enhance learning opportunities in the outdoor environment so children who prefer to learn outdoors can fully extend their learning in their preferred environment
• support staff to understand how to implement all aspects of the curriculum consistently.