Kids Planet Butterfly Lodge

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are warm and caring. The curriculum focus is well matched to support the children currently on roll. Leaders and the wider staff team aim for children to be confident to express themselves and to communicate their needs. Overall, staff know how to implement the curriculum. They position themselves at babies' eye level, so they can see their facial expressions and develop non-verbal communication skills. While toddlers transfer water between containers in play, staff provide them with new vocabulary to give meaning to their actions. Staff working with older children give them time to process their answers to questions and test out their knowledge.

Staff use their observations of what children choose to play with and take account of what children and their parents tell them, to help to shape the learning experiences. This keeps children engaged and eager to take part. Leaders thoughtfully organise the environment into small intimate areas. This helps children to feel safe. Staff enable children to play and interact together in small groups. Consequently, children show positive behaviours and concentrate well. Lunchtime is organised so that children eat together in smaller groups. They can practise their conversation skills in a relaxed and calm environment. Staff role model good manners and habits, which children then repeat in their play. Children know what is expected of them. For example, when they transition from inside nursery to the garden, they safely use the stairs and learn how to independently put on puddle suits to play outdoors. Children make good progress in relation to their starting points across all areas of learning.

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

• The nursery has an embedded key-person system. Staff recognise how their positive relationships with children and their families contribute to children's emotional resilience over time. This partnership working assures parents that their child's needs are met. Children's emotional well-being is supported.
• Children have many opportunities to be physically active. The curriculum supports children to learn to skip, hop, jump, reach and balance. Children enjoy practising these skills while they listen to exciting stories, such as travelling to different planets in a rocket. Children develop a full range of large-muscle physical skills in an imaginative way.
• Staff assess children's learning well. They use assessment effectively to inform their understanding of children's communication development. They know how to support this further and plan appropriate next steps. Staff are effective at helping children to develop their communication skills.
• Although leaders plan a broad curriculum, which includes lots of outings, visitors and music and movement sessions, some parts of the curriculum are not delivered as effectively as others. Leaders do not always ensure staff are confident of what they want children to learn during these activities. They do not always ensure staff know how to adapt the activities to maximise children's progress. Sometimes, these activities do not precisely support children to make progress in their individual next steps in learning.
• Opportunities for parents to contribute to their child's learning at home are provided. Children borrow resource bags to help them to make sense of new experiences, such as going to the dentist. Parents are offered 'toddler talk' cards and mini activities to try at home to help to support children's talking skills. This supports parents to be able to continue and embed the core curriculum feature of developing children's communication and language skills, at home.
• Staff continually give praise to children to help them to feel proud of their efforts. They use Makaton signs, along with language, to help children to remember and reinforce their polite manners when they say 'thank you' and 'more please'. This helps children to develop a positive sense of self, while they develop their awareness of respect for others.
• Additional funding is used well. For example, funding is used to purchase new resources that leaders know will interest children, such as resources that are similar to what children have at home or, conversely, something brand new to ignite new interests. This positively contributes to children's overall good progress and narrows the gap in their learning.
• Partnership working with other professionals is effective. Leaders have a great depth of understanding of multi-agency working. They are committed to seeking help to benefit children's progress and meet their needs. As a result, children get external help as and when they need it.
• Training opportunities are available for staff. Staff recently completed training on improving their interactions with children. This is evidenced clearly by how much focus staff place on how they communicate with children effectively. Children benefit from receiving quality interactions from staff that are knowledgeable and committed to their continuous professional development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to more closely tailor all aspects of the curriculum, to focus on continually building on individual children's prior knowledge.