Kido Windsor

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish and thrive in the first-rate environment. The manager and her staff create an exceptionally friendly and warm atmosphere. Staff pay great attention to building excellent relationships with children, as well as each member of their family unit. Staff listen to the children's discussions with enthusiasm and ask appropriate questions of interest to further extend learning.

Children are happy and extremely confident. Staff expertly plan a wide range of exciting opportunities that skilfully prepare children for their next stages in their learning, such as starting school. For instance, children build their concentration through well-focussed memory games about healthy eating. Children learn to take turns, ask questions and work as a group. They are exceptionally engaged in their learning and play. Staff give children time to respond to questions and opportunities to try to do activities for themselves. Children become extremely independent learners. They impressively recognise their own names, fetch their own coats, put shoes on and pour their own drinks during mealtimes. Children have the freedom to make their own choices.

Staff are exceptionally skilful at extending and consolidating children's skills needed for the next stages in their learning. Older children learn about personal space and respect, while younger children strengthen their physical skills. They enjoy yoga and outdoor play, such as nature trails in the local parks. Babies develop language and listening skills through listening to staff, who provide narratives during their activities. Staff work tremendously hard to create a supportive environment where parents are informed in detail of their child's progress and how they can extend learning at home.

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

• Children receive exceptional levels of support in their emotional development. They build strong bonds with their key person. Staff are exemplary role models.
• Children develop an excellent awareness of the world around them and of their immediate community. For example, children make regular and well-planned visits to the local care home for older people and build effective relationships. They play games together and recently did an online Christmas carol concert for the residents.
• Staff effectively challenge stereotypes with children. For example, they discuss how the occupation of a firefighter can be for any person and provide a range of books on occupations for all genders.
• The manager provides staff with a robust supervision and training schedule. Staff feel that the manager fully values their contributions and that they receive excellent levels of support about their health and well-being.
• Staff monitor children's progress regularly, which means they are able to address and close any gaps in learning quickly. Recent monitoring found a weakness in children's social skills after time away from the nursery due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Staff skilfully led extra group songs and game times to further extend children's vocabulary and support the children's social interactions.
• Staff support children who cannot attend the nursery due to COVID-19. For example, staff provided online activities through reading stories and a range of exciting activities that parents could do at home with them. Parents are highly complimentary about the excellent care and education their children receive and the very good progress children make.
• Superb support for children with English as an additional language (EAL) is put in place by extremely dedicated staff. They undertake extremely well-focussed sessions so that children learning EAL do not fall behind in their learning.
• Children access a superb range of activities, which they explore with awe and wonder, using all their senses. For example, children explored a range of natural objects, such as clay, bark, potatoes and flowers. Staff expertly promoted their language skills and vocabulary by introducing new words, such as 'malleable', 'hydrate' and 'oval'.
• Staff skilfully use books in all areas of the nursery to promote children's curiosity to learn. Children learn about different dinosaurs from factual books and spend long periods of time absorbed in exploring small-world dinosaur toys. Staff teach children words to support this learning, such as 'extinct' and 'prehistoric'. Children ask a wide range of interesting questions, including wondering why dinosaurs are extinct.
• Children receive expert support as they get ready to move on to the next nursery rooms and school. Staff share extremely detailed reports with parents, meet teachers and support children in their school visits by attending their schools during settling-in sessions. This helps children to feel very secure and ready for their next stage of learning.