Into The Wild Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children part from their parents and carers with ease. They build secure bonds with the caring staff, who welcome them warmly with smiles and cuddles. This helps children to feel safe and secure and promotes their emotional well-being. Children build positive friendships and play together at activities of their choosing. They are confident and introduce themselves to visitors.

Children have access to a well-resourced forest area, as well as a large garden. They enjoy lots of time outdoors in the fresh air each day, which supports their health and well-being. Children enjoy a range of activities that support their physical development. For example, they balance on wooden benches, dig in mud and sand and roll and chase hula hoops. They gain strong levels of coordination and stamina.

Children receive lots of praise from staff, who involve them in positive interactions. Staff engage children during small-group activities, for example when they explore the 'sound box' to discover what items are inside. Staff are on hand to develop children's communication and language. They model words and add new vocabulary, as they look at the differences between 'lemons' and 'limes'.

Children learn about similarities and differences between themselves and others. For example, they play with wooden blocks that have photos of themselves and their houses on. They compare their photos and point out key features such as the colour of their front door or if they are wearing a hat.

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

• There is a rich curriculum on offer. The manager has worked with parents to create a shared vision of what they want children to know and learn. Staff recognise children's new and emerging interests. For example, after a conversation about pirates, staff provide opportunities for children to dig for gems in the sand. Children excitedly show off their 'treasure' and count how many 'jewels' they find. Staff make good use of the forest area. They provide daily opportunities for children to learn about the natural world and to be creative and solve problems that they encounter.
• The manager carries out staff observations and meets with staff regularly to help improve their practice. Staff have the opportunity to attend training online. The manager is aspirational for her staff and setting. She reflects on improvements they can make to enhance the opportunities available to staff and children. Staff feel supported to share their own ideas. The manager values their contributions, which keeps staff's morale high.
• Partnership with parents is good. Staff and parents work well together on flexible settling-in arrangements. This helps to ensure an easy transition for the children between home and nursery. Parents are complimentary about the activities on offer and the care their children receive.
• Children, including those who speak English as an additional language and those in receipt of additional funding, develop well in all areas of learning. They enjoy a range of activities that support their early literacy skills. Children listen intently as staff read familiar stories. They make marks and begin to draw recognisable pictures with different materials, such as chunky chalks and board markers. Children have opportunities to use tools for a purpose. For example, they hammer leaves and petals onto fabric. This helps to strengthen the muscles in their fingers and hands, as well as their hand-to-eye coordination. These skills will help children with later learning, such as reading and writing.
• Children, generally, behave well and show respect towards each other. However, on occasion, staff do not address signs of unwanted behaviour swiftly enough. This shows inconsistencies in how well staff implement the setting's strategies for managing children's behaviour.
• The curriculum for mathematics is evident throughout the nursery. Children gain a good understanding of measuring and the recognition of numerals. For example, they use tape measures to find the length of bugs and butterflies they find in soil. Staff support children to identify the number they see on the tape. They seamlessly extend children's learning even further. For instance, staff encourage children to find other things to measure in the nursery. These include the towers of bricks that children carefully build and each other to see who the tallest child at nursery is.
• Staff encourage children to be independent throughout the day, for instance when changing shoes and serving themselves at mealtimes. However, staff have not fully considered how to implement an effective lunchtime routine to further support older children's growing social skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to provide a more consistent approach when managing children's behaviour, to help children to develop further skills to regulate their own behaviour
• refine the organisation of the lunchtime routine for all children to extend and strengthen their developing social skills.