Kidspace Pre-School and Wrap Around Care

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Kind and caring staff welcome all children at the nursery with genuine warmth. Children separate from their parents and carers happily. They quickly settle into their play, showing they feel safe and secure. Children show positive attitudes to their learning and enjoy taking part in the many activities on offer.

Staff offer a varied curriculum that provides children with a variety of enjoyable experiences. Staff encourage children to use their imaginations during their play while developing their physical strength. For example, children pretend to make colourful potions. They pour, mix and squeeze coloured water into tubes as staff help them to identify the effects of mixing colours. Staff introduce different herbs that children pick and chop, smelling each one as they add them to their mixtures. Children have fun and are happy in their interactions with staff.

Children of different ages enjoy playing alongside each other. Older children show care and concern for younger children as they join them to play outside together. Staff skilfully help children to understand the importance of sharing and taking turns through playing games and joining in with group time.

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

• Staff plan an ambitious curriculum for all children. They get to know children well and accurately assess their development. This helps staff to clearly understand what children already know and what they need to learn next. Staff skilfully incorporate children's interests into learning experiences to ensure that they are fully engaged in their play. This helps all children to make good progress in their learning and development.
• Staff support children's communication and language well. They share stories with children, which helps them to develop a love of reading and to learn how to handle books. Children receive time to offer their opinions about characters in a book. Staff encourage them to provide their thoughts on what may happen next. This helps to develop children's vocabulary, listening skills and ability to express themselves.
• Overall, staff provide good support in helping children to remain focused and engaged in their learning and play. However, at small-group times, staff do not consistently use these strategies to support children's listening and attention skills. For example, although staff ask children to put away the toys for group time, they do not ensure that all children do this. Some children still have toys, which causes disagreements between them. This results in children becoming distracted and not fully engaging in the group session.
• Staff encourage a positive attitude to learning. They offer praise, encouragement and familiar routines. As a result, children behave well across the setting. While staff have identified and planned support strategies to help children who struggle to regulate their emotions, these strategies have not yet been implemented. This means, at times, some children do not always receive the support they need to manage their own emotions.
• Staff support children to be physically active. Children have access to outdoor activities and exercise every day, including walks to the local library and parks. Staff assist children in learning skills for balance, such as walking along balance beams while holding their arms out. Staff help children to roll out dough and use tools to make print, helping to strengthen their hands in preparation for writing.
• Staff promote children's hygiene and independence through daily routines. Children learn self-care skills, such as toileting, handwashing and feeding. They ensure that children have access to fresh drinking water throughout the day and sit with them at mealtimes to discuss healthy food choices.
• Parents are well informed about their children's progress through daily conversations and information shared on the childcare app. Staff use events, such as parent stay-and-play sessions, sharing book bags and home sharing boxes, to support parents to be involved in their children's learning.
• Leaders offer regular mentoring, coaching, training and support staff to share their knowledge and put it into practice. This promotes staff's well-being and ongoing professional development well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to be more consistent with their expectations of children's behaviour, particularly during group times, to support children's listening and attention skills
• implement strategies to support children's understanding how to manage their own emotions.