Kirsty's Little Treasures

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff warmly greet the children and parents on arrival. Children enthusiastically wave goodbye to their parents as they join their friends, excited and ready to start their day at nursery. Staff provide a safe and secure environment where children seek out comfort when needed. They provide children with a warm and reassuring cuddle, which helps them to settle so they feel confident to go and play.

Children get excited as they join in with fun singing sessions. For example, they sit with their friends and staff and hold onto a parachute. Children giggle in delight as they shake this to the beat as they sing the songs. This provides children with opportunities to develop their social skills. Staff spark children's curiosity as they read stories to children. They ask children questions to encourage them to think about what might happen next in the book. This helps to promote early literacy skills and a love of reading.

Children learn about the world around them and how to care for their environment. They join staff during litter-picking sessions to help keep their local community clean and tidy. Staff provide a range of different initiatives to support the families that attend the nursery, including offering a book lending library and a food bank.

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

• Managers work closely with the staff to ensure they have the support required to carry out their roles. Staff meet regularly with the managers to discuss their well-being and any ongoing training they may need. This contributes to positive working relationships and high levels of staff morale.
• The range of activities staff provide ignite children to be excited and join in. The most confident children in the group readily share their views and ideas. However, some children are interrupted when they speak, as staff do not remind the children to be polite and wait their turn. As a result, some children are not always building awareness and respect for others effectively.
• Procedures for allergy management are robust. Staff implement effective procedures to ensure that children eat the right foods. This includes alerting staff to the contents of any food-based activities, such as dough or pasta play. This ensures children remain safe during these activities.
• Staff promote mealtimes to be sociable occasions. Children sit together and talk about their day. They share their thoughts on what they might be having for their meal. However, how staff organise these mealtime routines means that, at times, children wait for longer than necessary for their food to be served. This results in children becoming restless and a little disruptive.
• Staff identify gaps in children's learning early and make timely referrals where necessary. They work closely with parents and other professionals to ensure children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) have the required support. Staff swiftly implement individual support plans so children can make expected progress in their learning and development.
• Parent partnerships are strong. Parents comment that staff are compassionate and provide high-quality care. They feel that communication is excellent because staff share detailed information about the activities parents can provide at home to continue their child's learning.
• Children enjoy their time being physically active in the garden. They skilfully climb the tyres to the slide and successfully slide down this. Children delve into a range of activities to develop their fine motor skills, for example using tweezers to pick up pasta and move this into different containers. Children roll and manipulate the dough into different shapes. They use buttons to create different animals and excitedly share their creations with the staff. Staff provide an abundance of praise, which helps build on children's self-esteem.
• Staff promote school readiness through a range of activities and experiences. They encourage children to wash their hands before eating and talk to them about the importance of this. Older children use their cutlery to cut their meals at lunchtime. Children develop their early writing skills through making marks on whiteboards or in the sensory trays as they trace patterns with their fingers and tools.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen arrangements to support all children to be polite and develop respect for one another
• review and improve the organisation of mealtime routines so that children are not waiting for extended periods of time.