Kindred Waltham Abbey

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

On arrival, children smile and show an eagerness to enter this inviting nursery with its cosy, home-from-home atmosphere. New babies and children demonstrate that they feel safe and comfortable by freely exploring the wide range of age-appropriate resources on offer. Staff are warm, nurturing and consistently responsive to all children's ongoing learning and emotional needs. Consequently, children build swift and strong attachments to their key person. Babies often initiate cuddles with them when they need a little reassurance, and older children confidently ask staff when they require some help. Children feel a sense of belonging as staff beautifully present children's artwork throughout the nursery. This boosts children's self-esteem as they proudly talk about their successes and achievements.

Children merrily join in with singing and performing actions to their favourite songs. This contributes to the swift progress children make in their speech and language development. Children develop healthy lifestyles and benefit from continuous access to outdoor play. The woodland garden offers endless opportunities to explore nature, such as learning about growth and the life cycles of plants. Staff promote positive behaviours with their consistently good role modelling, such as introducing fun, turn-taking games. This means older children are gradually beginning to solve disagreements with peers for themselves.

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

• Teaching is of very good quality. It is organised in a way that helps children remember long term what they have been taught and build connections in their learning. For example, as babies and young children enjoy a messy-play experience based around a familiar fairy tale, staff introduce and repeat new single words and phrases. Additionally, they introduce corresponding puppets and books to extend and maximise children's learning. As children explore the book, they begin to use gestures and repeat learned words to correctly recall what is happening in the story.
• The management team works closely with all staff to ensure the well-planned curriculum is embedded throughout the nursery. Staff use children's interests and knowledge from ongoing assessment processes to plan interesting activities and experiences. As a result, children are happy, inquisitive learners who consistently show high levels of engagement and an eagerness to learn.
• Children confidently share their knowledge of arctic animals with others during a winter-themed, imaginary play activity. Staff ask thought-provoking questions to extend children's knowledge and the understanding of this topic. Sometimes, staff do not consistently help children fully discover answers to these questions or curiosities to deepen their knowledge and extend their learning and development further.
• The management team instigates effective partnership working with local schools and other professionals, such as speech and language therapists, to help secure relevant support for children now and when they transition to school. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress from their starting points.
• Children develop healthy eating habits and enjoy fresh and nutritious meals prepared daily on site. Mealtimes are well organised throughout the nursery. Older children patiently wait their turn to scrape their leftovers off their plate into the compost bin. Staff frequently provide meaningful praise for these respectful and polite manners, which promotes children to repeat these positive behaviours.
• Parents applaud the bespoke settling-in processes where staff get to know them and their children before starting. Parents welcome opportunities to join in with their child's activities and talk with staff. Overall, parents are happy with the daily, face-to-face and online communication they receive about their child's day. However, progress reviews with some parents are not thorough enough to ensure they continuously know how to further support their child's learning at home.
• Children consistently show high levels of independence. Staff foster confidence in children's own abilities by encouraging them to try and do things for themselves first, before offering help. With highly effective role modelling from staff, children are learning to successfully carry out and understand the importance of following hygiene routines to the end. For example, older children independently wash their hands after blowing their nose on a tissue.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff build on their already good interactions during children's play to further enhance and deepen their knowledge on topics children are interested in
• enhance further effective communication with parents so that all parents continuously understand how to support their child's specific ongoing learning at home.