Kids Planet Padiham

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at nursery ready to play and learn. They show that they feel safe with the familiar, welcoming staff. Staff deliver a curriculum that includes a balance of child- and adult-led activities. Pre-school children become deeply engaged in self-initiated role play. They share ideas with each other about what will happen next in the storyline. This promotes children's imagination and their ability to work cooperatively. Staff plan activities that build on children's interests and experiences. When younger children share news about a family visit to a farm, staff use small-world toys to reinforce and extend what children know about farm animals.

Staff make their partnership with parents and carers a priority. They take careful account of individual family circumstances when they plan the pattern of sessions that children will attend. This helps parents to ensure children's attendance. Staff offer parents advice about topics such as encouraging children's consistent sleep habits. This helps everyone to promote children's healthy development and well-being. In addition, it supports children's readiness to benefit from funded early education. The nursery shares information about health and safety matters with staff and parents. A recent alert to the dangers of children swallowing button batteries has reminded everyone to be vigilant about preventing this.

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

• Staff feel supported to become confident, skilled professionals. Their teamwork fosters a purposeful and harmonious atmosphere. This promotes staff's and children's emotional well-being. Effective staff deployment and good communication mean that children are safely supervised. Staff tell each other which children they are taking outdoors to play. This means that everyone knows children's whereabouts.
• Staff follow the provider's accredited training programmes and gain qualifications. Alongside this, all staff complete training that refreshes and extends their knowledge and skills. Staff working with babies and toddlers have recently learned more about promoting children's sensory awareness. They sensitively encourage babies to discover and sit in shallow water. Babies, therefore, learn first-hand about the properties of water.
• The curriculum promotes children's social development. Younger children begin to understand that they should not take toys from other children. In addition, staff teach them to use appropriate strategies in response to unwanted behaviour. They learn to tell other children, 'Stop. I don't like it.' This helps children to learn how to participate positively in social play and group activities.
• Staff talk, read and sing with children. They teach them new words. This promotes children's communication and language. However, there are occasions when staff's interactions with children are less effective. For example, staff sometimes ask questions in a way that describes children's actions. The questions do not encourage children to think or respond. This limits children's meaningful dialogue.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported effectively. Staff make timely referrals to specialist professionals and take account of their advice, when they plan children's individual programmes. Staff make sure that the needs of children who speak English as an additional language are catered for. Funding for children at risk of disadvantage is used effectively. All children make good progress from their starting points.
• Children find out about their community and the wider world. They go out on listening walks and staff help them to distinguish between different sounds. This promotes children's readiness to read, when the time comes. Children learn the importance for the environment of recycling waste items. They sort and classify items of similar properties into different bins. This encourages children's mathematical thinking.
• Children's physical development is supported well. Children squeeze and roll play dough. They use tools to paint and draw. This promotes children's hand and finger strength. Children kick and throw balls with increasing power and accuracy. This promotes their balance and large-muscle development.
• Staff follow well-developed policies and procedures. They teach children to wipe runny noses and to dispose of the tissues. This limits the spread of infection. Staff support children to clean their faces after lunch. This promotes children's independence and self-care skills. When children have allergies to particular foods, their plates are labelled and everyone knows which foods the children must not eat. This helps to ensure that children are catered for safely.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff to notice and continuously improve the detail and impact of their spoken interactions with children.