Little Explorers Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and enjoy the time they spend at the nursery. They benefit from kind and caring relationships with the staff. Children demonstrate confidence in the environment and explore the well-planned indoor and outdoor play areas. Children behave well and understand the rules that they need to follow. Staff recognise the things that trigger children's behaviour and use distraction techniques effectively. As a result, children are engaged in play and cooperate with each other.

Staff provide high levels of support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and communicate well with other professionals. Consequently, they make good progress in their learning and development. Children successfully develop the skills they need for their future learning, including school, because staff know them well and teach them effectively. The staff have adapted well to adjustments in routines during the COVID-19 pandemic and are focusing on skills that children need to develop as result of the impact of the pandemic. For example, they give children lots of opportunities to use books, which helps to enhance their literacy skills.

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

• The manager supports staff's well-being effectively and staff comment positively on the supportive leadership they receive. The manager is knowledgeable, passionate and uses a range of methods to support staff's ongoing professional development in order to enhance their teaching skills. For example, following training on the development of babies, staff now have a better understanding of supporting very young children's development and plan activities that more widely promote their learning.
• Staff introduce lots of new words during their interactions with children to develop children's speaking, listening and understanding skills. For example, staff talk with babies about 'sprinkling' the sand, and they use positional language with older children to describe terms such as 'through' and 'underneath'. However, there are occasions when staff do not fully enhance children's thinking skills. For example, they do not always ask children challenging questions or give them enough time to think when responding to questions.
• Children have good opportunities to develop their physical skills as staff create opportunities for them to climb and balance. As children negotiate the challenges set out for them, they learn how to manage risks. Younger children pull themselves up to a standing position, using the fence panels to support them.
• Staff actively promote children's understanding of healthy lifestyles. For example, they use stories and props to help children to understand about the importance of good oral health.
• Staff explain to children the expectations of their behaviour and encourage good manners. This helps children to understand the rules and boundaries they are expected to follow. Children are polite and behave appropriately.
• Staff teach children about the world around them. For example, children plant seeds and learn about how fruits and vegetables grow. However, staff do not always find out a wide range of information about children's home lives, backgrounds or cultures to support them to reflect on their differences understand what makes them unique.
• Children make choices about whether they want to play indoors or outdoors and about which resources they want to use. This supports children's independence and contributes to the skills they need for their next stage in learning.
• Staff share information with parents about children's learning experiences in the nursery and support them in extending the learning at home so that children can receive a consistent approach. Parents are positive about the nursery, particularly the relationships that staff build with children. This helps to meet children's individual needs.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff to consider the importance of understanding children's home lives, backgrounds and cultures, in order to help children to reflect on their differences and understand what makes them unique
• support staff to develop their skills, in order to extend the opportunities where children can think critically for themselves.