Little Explorers Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and anticipate the day ahead with great enthusiasm. They know the daily routines well, and on arrival, they immediately put on their wetsuits and wellies. Children are keen to enjoy the outdoor environment. Staff encourage a democratic decision about where to visit each day. Children develop an understanding of fairness as they place their vote against the picture of the forest, farm, outdoor classroom, walled garden or 'roly-poly hill'. Staff remind children about rules to ensure they remain safe, such as holding up their hands so they can be counted quickly when in the forest. Children participate in counting their friends, which helps to develop their understanding of numbers in a practical context.

Children benefit from an exciting and stimulating learning environment and show deep levels of engagement and eagerness to learn. The highly qualified manager and staff team share a common understanding of how children learn best. They consistently provide a highly successful, challenging curriculum that builds on what children know and can do and creates resilient learners.

Children play wonderfully together and develop an excellent awareness of their immediate community. For example, they participate in a service for Remembrance Day at the on-site college and enjoy friendly visits from the local emergency service staff, who talk to them about their role in keeping people safe.

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

• Staff have a deep understanding of all children's needs. They use accurate assessments of children's progress to plan and deliver consistently challenging and enjoyable activities. As a result, children are making excellent progress. The manager and staff hold very high expectations of children. They skilfully take every opportunity to 'challenge and stretch' their knowledge and skills. Each child has a target that stretches a skill they have already mastered and a challenge to learn a new skill.
• All children are confident to communicate and share their ideas. Staff regularly introduce new words to children's already extensive range of vocabulary. For example, children remember what words were used by staff while they compared the size of branches in the forest. They confidently tell their friends they need to take an 'enormous stride' to miss the puddle. They talk considerately about their friends' feelings and respect that not everyone wants to be splashed.
• Children are compassionate and respectful of others. They listen attentively to staff and respond positively to their friend's ideas. For example, they negotiate how to move a pretend fire away from a tree branch so that children have space to engage in different play ideas. Staff support children to solve problems and to be persistent in their efforts. Children are encouraged to keep trying to hit the head of a nail to hammer it into a log. As a result, children remain focused on activities even when they encounter difficulties. Staff are excellent role models for the children. They consistently encourage and celebrate children's achievements throughout the nursery.
• Children share books such as 'The Rascally Cake' as they sit on the storytelling throne. Their imagination is ignited as they hunt for wiggly worms to put into their 'cake'. Children negotiate the rough underfoot terrain of the forest, developing their coordination and muscle skills as they use their pincer grip to pick up twigs to represent the worms.
• Partnerships with parents are professional and effective. Staff share with parents how children benefit from being immersed in the natural world through the vast range of experiences in the outdoor environment. Parents express their confidence in the 'super' team, which takes the utmost care of their children.
• The manager plans and delivers highly focused and effective professional development opportunities to raise the quality of teaching to an exceptional level. Staff undertake rigorous training to update their skills and knowledge. For example, following literacy training, staff have replaced singing with rhyme time so that children hear the alliteration in sentences. They now sing the rhymes more slowly so that children have time to process what they are hearing.
• The manager conducts highly effective supervision meetings and observations of staff's practice to support them to identify their strengths and areas for improvement. Staff feel their well-being is of paramount importance to the leadership team. For example, they take mindfulness walks at lunchtime.