Little Buttons Nursery

Inclusion: Strong standard

Staff consistently identify children's needs quickly. This allows them to make reflective adaptations to the learning environment. This ensures all children can access the learning offer, for example by making physical adaptations. This ensures the height of furniture is accessible to all.

Leaders ensure a robust oversight of assessment. This supports them to consistently meet the needs of all children, for example by doing early high-impact interventions, such as intensive interactions, and making referrals to other specialists. Staff work hard to reduce barriers for all children by working with families. This ensures children feel safe and welcome at the setting.

Staff have developed the skills and knowledge to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff are eager to take part in training to develop their knowledge. For example, they took part in a training day with a specific focus on autism. This followed requests by staff. This ensures that staff can meet the needs of children in their care. Staff work with their local authority and charities to ensure children get the timely support they need.

Leaders use additional funding with the child's needs in mind. For example, they have purchased sensory equipment to support children's emotional wellbeing. Leaders also track the impact of this to ensure it is effective and making a significant impact.

Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard

Leaders have securely embedded a highly coherent and clearly sequenced curriculum outlining the precise skills and knowledge they want children to learn across all rooms. There is a significant and sustained focus on communication and language development, with a strong emphasis on fostering a lifelong love of books. Children independently and purposefully choose books within their play and regularly take them home to share with their families. These experiences are further strengthened through carefully designed home reading packs, which include highly effective props and purposeful linked activities, successfully extending and deepening learning beyond the setting.

Children engage in a rich and stimulating range of sensory experiences that are intentionally designed to support expression, communication and early thinking skills. For example, children make chalk paint and use it with increasing confidence and creativity to create meaningful marks and patterns.

Teaching is highly intentional, precisely focused and consistently linked to children's next steps, ensuring that learning builds cumulatively over time. For example, when children were developing their understanding of colour recognition and naming, staff provided carefully selected and highly effective resources such as colour-matching jigsaws, which successfully reinforced and secured learning.

Children benefit from a well-resourced, stimulating and recently enhanced outdoor learning environment, which they access with enthusiasm and confidence. Leaders have clear, ambitious and well-targeted development plans in place for this area, closely aligned to children's next steps, including further opportunities to extend risk-taking, challenge and physical development. Staff consistently ensure that highly effective learning opportunities are delivered across all age groups, enabling children to deepen their understanding of the world. For example, children use live plants in the mud kitchen and demonstrate care, curiosity and respect as they explore and nurture living things.

Achievement: Strong standard

All children progress extremely well from their starting points. This is evident across all areas of learning and development. Children achieve their personal next steps in a rapid, timely and sustained manner. For example, younger children confidently take their first independent steps. Children consistently demonstrate that they are happy, safe and emotionally secure within the nursery. This is supported by highly effective and seamless handovers. It is also strengthened because children have exceptionally strong and secure bonds with their key workers.

Children purposefully and confidently develop their physical skills through planned activities. For example, they cut spaghetti, thread pasta onto a pipe cleaner and roll and shape the play dough with increasing control, precision and dexterity. Older children demonstrate a highly secure pencil grip and make purposeful and detailed marks in preparation for early writing.

Children enjoy being independent and support each other exceptionally well. For example, they help to put aprons on each other before playing in the water tray. They also, when age-appropriate, confidently and independently self-serve their own meals. This enables children to develop the essential life skills, confidence and self-help abilities they need for future learning and continued success.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard

Children show an active interest in learning. This is due to staff knowing their children very well and listening to them. For example, the children make choices by using voting pom-poms in the older rooms. All children benefit from warm and positive attachments with their key person. This includes the setting having arrangements in place for when staff are off work. This supports children's emotional development.

Staff follow routines at the setting to support children in understanding what is coming next. However, there are some minor inconsistencies in the implementation of mealtime routines across rooms, which can result in occasional waiting times and less efficient transitions for children. Leaders are aware of this variation in practice and are proactively working with staff to further strengthen consistency, ensuring that routines are embedded uniformly across the setting to support smooth and efficient daily flow for all children.

Leaders have a clear, proactive and supportive approach to attendance. They work with families to develop positive habits for learning. They follow their policy, which includes carrying out home visits on children. This ensures that children are well cared for and take full advantage of the learning offer.

Behaviour is typically positive across the setting. Leaders are working proactively to ensure consistency across all rooms, with all staff sharing the same high expectations for children's behaviour and conduct. As a result, children are increasingly learning to regulate their behaviour, cooperate well with others and take responsibility for caring for resources and the environment. Leaders and staff make appropriate adjustments when considering children's individual needs, ensuring that all children are supported to achieve the highest possible standards of behaviour.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Children from an early age have independent care practices. This is highly effective and embedded at the setting, for example, blowing their own noses and then putting the tissue in the bin and washing their hands. This supports children to effectively manage their own personal needs.

Staff create meaningful relationships with the children and families in their care. Children have deep trust in the staff they work with. This supports the children to feel reassured at the setting, creating a safe and nurturing space for all children.

Leaders ensure that children's welfare is highly prioritised. They have embedded and tailored sleeping routines for the children. This supports children to rest at the setting. Leaders also ensure that, when needed, individual health care plans are in place. As a result, this meets the needs of the children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff follow such plans and have a deep understanding of how they are implemented.

Children benefit from healthy and nutritious meals, for example, chickpea curry served with rice and naan bread. Staff freshly prepare the meals on site for the children. They are well balanced and created with the children's preferences in mind. This supports children to make healthy food choices.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

Leaders know their local area and families extremely well and ensure the setting's offer is closely matched to their needs. They work proactively with families to ensure they receive the right support at the right time. For example, they work effectively with local schools and alternative provisions to secure smooth transitions. Leaders also accompany families on transition visits and school visits, ensuring a highly supportive and consistent approach. They ensure families remain positively engaged with the setting and the learning offer, including those who are harder to reach, for example by offering stay-and-play sessions at flexible times throughout the year to support working families.

Leaders demonstrate a highly proactive approach to identifying and addressing areas for development within the setting. They understand key priorities and act swiftly to ensure consistency across practice and provision. Where weaknesses are identified, leaders implement clear actions and follow through rigorously to ensure sustained improvement. This includes consistency around supporting staff at mealtimes and with behaviour. Leaders are aware and reflective about this.

Leaders prioritise staff wellbeing and ensure staff feel highly valued for their contribution. They promote an active listening culture, for example through a suggestion box and regular wellbeing meetings with all staff. Staff report feeling supported and valued and benefit from team-building opportunities. Leaders also monitor workload carefully and take effective action to ensure it remains manageable and does not impact staff wellbeing.

Staff engage in a wide range of professional development opportunities, supported by a strong culture of continuous learning. Leaders ensure staff are well informed about upcoming training opportunities, for example in relation to further developing knowledge and practice in special educational needs and/or disabilities.