Kindred Salisbury

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and feel secure at the nursery. They form a strong bond with their key member of staff. Babies settle quickly into the nursery and are soon confident to move away from their key person to explore their surroundings. Older children are adventurous and eager to play with the wide range of resources, which they can move and use in creative ways. For example, children work together to place planks on crates and then gain the confidence to balance on the raised walkway. Staff have high expectations for all the children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff create exciting environments that encourage children's curiosity. For example, children delight in discovering how pasta flows more quickly down tubes when they change the angle of the tube.

Children behave very well. Staff support them sensitively as they learn to share. For example, they use a sand timer to decide when it is someone else's turn. They encourage children to help one another and to listen to each other's ideas. Children play with puppets and read books that help them to recognise and name the different emotions they experience. Children play cooperatively and make firm friendships.

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

• Children make good progress in all areas of their development. Enthusiastic staff know the children very well. They use children's current fascinations to provide a wide range of experiences that stimulate children's curiosity and enthusiasm for learning. For example, staff create a builder's area and include photos of several types of buildings, clipboards, and tape measures to encourage children's creative play. Staff play alongside children and observe their progress so they can plan what children need to learn next. However, staff sometimes miss opportunities to challenge and extend children's mathematical understanding.
• Staff interact well with the babies. For example, they sing with them to support their developing communication. Staff are caring and respectful while they address babies' needs. Staff encourage young children to move and explore, and they share in babies' delight when they walk over a low ramp. Staff provide rich experiences to support babies' early development. For example, babies explore and investigate baskets full of interesting objects.
• Staff interact well overall with children in their self-chosen play. However, when staff plan adult-led activities, they do not consistently identify precisely what they want children to learn and ensure that the activity is appropriately challenging for the children taking part. For example, staff introduce unfamiliar letters to children before they have sufficiently developed their phonological awareness, such as hearing the sounds, rhythms and rhymes in words.
• Children who speak English as an additional language are supported well by staff. For instance, staff use picture cards and key words in children's home languages to help them settle. Staff support children with SEND very effectively. They collaborate closely with other professionals and parents to support children's particular areas of development.
• Staff record and understand children's individual health and dietary needs. Children learn about good hygiene as they wash their hands and practise cleaning model teeth. The nursery provides healthy meals, and staff encourage the children to try new tastes. Mealtimes are calm and sociable occasions, which helps children to enjoy their food. Children are highly active and spend much of the day playing outside. Each week, they benefit from the added interest of forest-school and ballet sessions.
• Managers support staff's well-being and professional development effectively. They observe staff practice and meet with them regularly to discuss performance and identify training needs, such as in supporting children's mathematical development. Managers highly value the staff team and involve them in every aspect of the continuous improvement of the setting.
• Staff build strong partnerships with parents and gather information so they can provide familiar care routines for children. They strengthen relationships further by communicating in a variety of ways. Parents say they highly value the advice that staff share to help them support children's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• identify precisely what children are to learn from planned activities, and ensure that staff appropriately challenge the children taking part in order to help them consolidate and build on what they already know
• enhance staff's teaching skills to enable them to support children's mathematical development.