Kiddiecare Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff welcoming the children encourage them to find their name peg and hang up their coat and bag. Children enter nursery happily, greeting their friends. Children separate quickly from their parents as they are eager to start their day. Staff use interesting and well-presented activities to engage children's attention and support next steps in their learning. Planning is visibly linked to an ambitious curriculum, with staff having high expectations for all children.

Behaviour is good. Practice is embedded and supports children when moving from free play to routine events. Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), respond immediately by stopping what they are doing and putting their hands up to listen to instructions from staff. Children join in with tidying up as they sing the 'tidy-up time' song. Children remind each other if they get distracted and begin to play. Children are aware of what they need to do to get ready for what is going to happen next. For example, children make their way to the carpet area, with minimal staff support, eager to join their circle time. They enthusiastically recite and sing the days of the week. Staff direct children to look out the window before joining in a discussion on the day's weather. Children request favourite songs; they sing as they complete actions, smiling and laughing to demonstrate their enjoyment. Children build their confidence; they feel secure and form strong relationships with kind, responsive staff.

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

• Favourite books, such as 'Goldilocks', are used effectively to link planning for both adult-led and free-play activities across all seven areas of the curriculum. The 'reading pod' is set up as the three bears' home. Porridge oats, bowls and spoons of varying sizes are used in sensory play. Focused adult-led activities include opportunities for children to mix ingredients together to make play dough. Language related to size and number is threaded into conversations with the children.
• Staff skilfully differentiate planned activities to include clear aims for children at different stages of development. For example, older children are encouraged to recall and sequence events in stories, and younger children join in with singing songs with actions or repeating phrases. Behaviour is supported by staff reinforcing the setting's 'golden rules' and children being recognised at circle time for kind actions. Occasionally, some staff praise children with 'good boy' or 'good girl', and children are left unclear about what they have done well.
• Children with SEND are well supported. Space in the setting has been adapted to make a small sensory area for children experiencing sensitivity to sound or those who require time away from the main area. Practice is well developed to ensure the early identification of children with SEND. Staff work in partnership with parents to devise individual learning goals. Partnership working with the local authority and health professionals ensures children, their families and staff have clear, shared strategies to support each child to make good progress.
• A high focus is placed on developing children's language and communication. Staff use gestures, objects of reference and, for children who speak English as an additional language, words from home to ensure that children's needs are met and that they become confident communicators. However, back-and-forth conversations within small groups of children or between adults and children are not developed fully, as some staff ask questions that do not support sustained thinking.
• Parents happily discuss how their child has made progress since starting nursery. Many parents have returned with younger children as they felt staff have 'become like family' for them and their child. Parents describe how staff have reminded and helped them to apply for school places, given advice on healthy eating or support them with skills for their child, such as working together on toilet training.
• The manager is committed to supporting her staff. Regular team meetings, supervision, access to training and observations of practice support staff's continuous professional development. Leaders and managers act as strong role models to support individual team members to develop their skills, confidence and careers.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• be more consistent in how the curriculum for language and communication is delivered
• ensure children being rewarded with praise know what actions or behaviour they are being rewarded for.