Kensington House Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

At this nursery, the manager and her highly trained team of staff cultivate a safe and stimulating environment in which children and their personal development are at the centre of everything they do. The manager is extremely passionate about fostering a supportive community between the setting and its families in which information and advice can be shared in a safe and nurturing manner. Staff have high aspirations for children and use their own unique interests and curiosities to shape the curriculum. Key staff are allocated following careful observation of each child during the settling-in period and conversations with parents and carers.

Parents and carers have high levels of confidence in the exceptional levels of personal detail which go into the planning and preparation of daily life for their children. Families comment on the fact that the manager consistently goes the extra mile to ensure that their child is making progress across all areas of the curriculum. Children are extremely effective at learning to do things for themselves. The nursery manager is reflective and dedicated to ensuring learning is tailored to the individual child. Together with her committed staff team, she consistently evaluates all aspects of the provision to identify where improvements might be made to continuously raise standards in teaching and learning.

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

• Every child is recognised as being unique. This is evident through the individual play plans written for each child. These are updated each term through shared communication between the staff and parents and carers.
• The manager has maintained and built upon the nursery's outstanding effectiveness over the last six years. She provides excellent leadership that enables children and staff to thrive.
• Staff nurture and support each child's individual needs and communicate between themselves to ensure there is a consistent approach to teaching.
• The manager creates a sense of community and mutual support effectively by inviting parents and carers into nursery each term for a coffee morning. This opportunity is also used to support families in any area they may need such as behaviour management strategies.
• Children behave in a commendable manner, and this is thanks to the high expectations held by staff and the nursery manager, who consistently model respect and good manners to each other and the children in their care.
• Children attending the nursery come from a range of diverse backgrounds and all children are given the same enriching opportunities and granted the same level of outstanding care and teaching.
• Children have access to a wide variety of curriculum enriching activities such as drama and tennis.
• Outdoor learning plays an important part in the children's day and builds upon the activities children engage in during their continuous provision.
• Staff work attentively to foster children's confidence and independence, and they are taught to be highly aware of their own self-care. For example, they serve their own food, pour their water and clean their plates during lunchtime.
• The manager supports and liaises with various agencies in the local community in order to best support their early years provision in education.
• Staff are confident and empowered to promote children's emotional well-being and overall enjoyment of nursery life through the use of well-established daily routines.
• Children are individually supported and enabled to explore their environment and solve problems. For example, children use the key vocabulary when naming different shapes they find and make crossovers to counting how many of each shape.
• The curriculum is centred around the skills children need to know and also what the children are interested in knowing more about.
• The manager provides an enabling environment in which her staff are actively encouraged to continuously seek professional development opportunities. These opportunities are supported by the manager herself and, as a result, staff are highly trained to communicate, plan for and deliver outstanding teaching.