Kids Planet Heddon-on-the-wall

Inclusion: Expected standard

Leaders identify children who may need additional help, including those facing barriers to their learning or wellbeing, and work with families and other professionals to understand and reduce these barriers. Staff use developmental information, including two-year progress checks and communication assessments to identify emerging needs. This helps to provide targeted support and activities where needed.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities have individual plans, which incorporate specialist advice. Staff understand these plans and make appropriate adaptations. This includes using visual communication, smaller groups and more gradual transitions. These adaptations make a positive difference. For example, the introduction of visual communication has helped some children to communicate their choices more successfully. Parents also recognise the progress children make with additional support.

Leaders consider the individual needs of children eligible for early years pupil premium. They involve parents and key persons when deciding how funding will reduce identified barriers, particularly those relating to communication. Leaders use assessment to review the support provided. This helps children who need additional support to participate in nursery life and make progress from what they know and can already do.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Leaders have established what they want children to learn as they progress through the nursery. They prioritise communication, independence and physical development alongside the knowledge and skills children need for their next stage. Leaders work with the local authority to strengthen aspects of the curriculum, including mathematics and communication.

Staff generally understand the curriculum and know their key children well. They use books, songs, routines, children's interests and the local environment to support learning. There are examples of skilful teaching. For instance, staff use mathematical vocabulary, books and well-chosen questions to extend children's ideas. Staff adapt teaching appropriately for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

Leaders have correctly identified staff's interactions as an area for further development and have provided training. This is beginning to improve practice. However, the quality and precision of interactions are not yet consistent. At times, staff do not make full use of opportunities to model language or extend children's communication and thinking. Leaders' work to improve interactions is beginning to have an impact, but the strongest practice is not yet embedded across the nursery.

Achievement: Expected standard

Children make appropriate progress from their different starting points across the areas of learning. Babies develop secure relationships and increasingly communicate and manage simple routines. As children progress through the nursery, they become increasingly independent, develop their language and physical skills and show greater concentration and persistence.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities make progress towards their individual targets because staff implement appropriate adaptations and specialist advice. Children who need additional help are supported to participate and develop important communication and independence skills.

Older children develop the skills they need in preparation for school, including managing their personal needs, communicating with others, following instructions and developing early literacy and mathematical knowledge. However, variation in the quality of staff's interactions means that opportunities to deepen and extend children's knowledge and thinking are not consistently maximised.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Leaders have established a highly positive and respectful culture. Warm relationships help children understand expectations and develop confidence in managing their behaviour. Staff know children well and adapt their approaches where individual children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, need additional support.

Children demonstrate consistently positive attitudes to their experiences. They concentrate for sustained periods and persevere when they encounter difficulty. For example, younger children persist with challenging self-care tasks rather than immediately relying on staff for help. Children spontaneously help one another when something is difficult and show genuine pleasure in their friends' successes. They cooperate, take turns and increasingly manage everyday routines independently.

Children show notable consideration for others. They readily include their friends in play, share resources and respond positively when others need help. Routines are calm and predictable, and children know what is expected of them. During sociable mealtimes, they talk confidently with staff and friends, use good manners and increasingly take responsibility for themselves. These expectations develop progressively as children move through the nursery.

Leaders promote regular attendance and follow up unexplained or repeated absence. Well-established routines support children's positive behaviour, growing independence and readiness for their next stage.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Children flourish within the setting's distinctive homely approach. Staff know children and their families well and use this knowledge to provide highly responsive care. They create continuity between children's experiences at home and nursery. Babies form secure attachments to their key persons and confidently check back with them for reassurance as they explore. Parents value the close relationships they develop with staff and have confidence in the care their children receive.

Children develop increasing independence through carefully established daily routines. Babies are encouraged to attempt new skills for themselves, while older children increasingly manage dressing, toileting and their personal belongings. Staff recognise when children are ready for greater independence and give them the time, encouragement and reassurance they need to succeed. This builds children's confidence in their own capabilities.

The setting makes particularly effective use of its small village community. Children regularly explore their local surroundings and enjoy experiences, such as village events. This helps them become familiar with where they live and develop a strong sense of belonging. Alongside this, books, stories, music and creative experiences broaden children's understanding of people, cultures and experiences beyond their immediate community.

Children benefit from extensive opportunities to be physically active outdoors, explore and take appropriate risks. Staff give careful attention to individual care needs, including safer-sleep arrangements. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive appropriate adaptations that support their communication, emotional security and participation.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

Leaders, and those responsible for oversight, know the setting well. Their evaluation of its strengths and priorities closely matches what is happening in practice. Leaders seek external expertise, including from the local authority, and use this purposefully to improve the curriculum and provision.

Children benefit from a well-considered approach to developing staff's expertise. Leaders use induction, mentoring, supervision and peer observation to identify what individual practitioners need to improve and provide professional learning that responds to these needs. For example, leaders identified interactions as an area for development and provided targeted training and support. Staff explain how this has strengthened their practice, and improvements are evident in the quality of interactions children now experience.

Leaders provide effective oversight for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They ensure that staff understand individual plans, implement specialist advice and review the difference support makes.

Leaders give appropriate attention to staff's workload and wellbeing and provide individual support when needed. They make effective use of partnerships with the local authority and family hub to strengthen staff's knowledge and improve provision for children. Leaders' reflective culture, accurate self-evaluation and sustained focus on developing staff's expertise make a consistently positive difference to the quality of provision.