Kido Streatham

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happily, eager to play with their friends. They have good relationships with staff and each other. Babies show strong bonds with staff and enjoy lots of hugs and cuddles that help them feel safe and secure. Children play cooperatively and behave well. Staff offer support so that children learn how to regulate their behaviour. Older children enjoy taking responsibility, for example, being the star helper for the day. Children take turns and share toys. They move freely making choices and following their own interests during play. This helps them to develop effective independent learning skills.

The key-person system is embedded in staff's practice. They know the children well and identify what they already know and what they need to learn next. Children benefit from a broad and challenging curriculum that is well planned and sequenced. The activities reflect children's learning needs and interests. As a result, children make good progress across all areas of learning.

Older children show good early literacy skills while drawing. For example, they use books purposefully to look at fairies with staff then carefully draw representational pictures. They develop good early writing skills and confidently write their names. Displays of children's artwork, including their writing and written labels, help children to see text in the environment. These early literacy skills help prepare children for the next stage in their education.

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

• Leaders and managers have a clear vision. They promote an ambitious curriculum within an enabling environment, including a balance of extracurricular activities. They show high regard to supporting staff's continuous professional development through regular supervision sessions and lots of support, coaching and training. As a result, staff strive to improve and understand their roles and responsibilities.
• Parents comment that they like the atmosphere at the nursery and that their children are happy and settle quickly. They value the information shared by staff about their children's progress on the app and daily chats about all events of the day.
• Children have access to a good range of books and story bags in the group rooms and library. They independently use books and enjoy stories read by staff. However, some books used by children and staff are not well maintained. Consequently, this hinders children's early literacy skills and enjoyment of books and stories.
• Children's good health is promoted well through healthy eating and lots of opportunities to gain exercise. Children enjoy sociable mealtimes and a balanced diet of freshly prepared meals. They learn personal independence during toileting routines, handwashing and putting on their coats ready to go outside. Younger children have fun developing their balance and large movements while playing the parachute game with staff. Children confidently use the soft-play area and develop their balance and coordination skills while using a range of play equipment outside. These activities successfully enhance children's physical skills.
• Sometimes children do not receive clear guidance from staff during transition times, for example, at the end of large-group activities. Consequently, noise levels rise and children become restless, making it harder for them to concentrate and finish their activity. For a short time, this detracts on their positive attitudes to learning. However, they quickly settle again and enjoy their play.
• Babies become absorbed in sensory play. They freely explore different textures while playing with cereals and toy animals. Staff encourage them to feel and taste the cereals and smell the lavender. They extend children's vocabulary by introducing new words as they encourage them to sprinkle and blow the cereals. They extend children's learning further by singing songs about the animals while children join in making animal sounds.
• Older children successfully develop their skills in understanding the world during regular sessions aimed at promoting their skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. They enjoy wearing lab coats and engage in experiments. For example, looking at colour changes while mixing paints and explore light while shining torches in the volcano they have made. Their literacy skills are enhanced as they enjoy looking at reference books. They further develop their early mathematical skills while using rulers to measure toy dinosaurs. Children concentrate well, developing skills that aid their future learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• put systems in place to regularly check the quality of books used by children and staff to fully enhance children's love of books and their early literacy skills
• develop further staff's skills in managing transition times for group activities to minimise noise levels and optimise children's learning experiences.