Little Giants Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled at the nursery. Staff are friendly and have established good relationships with the children and their families, which helps children to feel safe and secure. Staff provide a supportive environment for all children to help them grow in confidence and reach their full potential. Children show positive attitudes to their learning. Overall, children behave well. Staff offer regular praise and rewards to children to recognise their efforts. Children have developed close bonds with caring staff. They show staff are important to them as they invite them to join their play and ask for support when necessary.

Children enjoy the activities available to them. Staff plan and provide learning experiences to build on children's interests and support their progress. For example, children's mathematical awareness is supported as they build enclosures for animals and measure spaghetti. Children have fun outside. They develop their physical skills successfully as they explore obstacle courses and take risks as they master ropes on the climbing apparatus. Staff engage purposefully with the children throughout their time at the nursery and incorporate songs, rhymes and stories effectively. Children demonstrate a love of books and enjoy appropriately structured group times to listen to staff read the nursery's core books.

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

• The manager and staff have worked hard to improve the overall quality of education for children. They have attended a good amount of training to support children's individual needs and utilised the support from the local authority to improve their practice and outcomes for children. This has helped to support all children in their learning and development, including those with additional needs.
• The quality of the curriculum is good. Staff support children's communication and language skills well. They ask a good amount of questions and engage children in conversations to help further their knowledge. Staff help parents to support and extend their child's learning. For instance, they offer a book lending library programme to encourage a love of reading at home.
• The manager regularly meets with the staff to talk about their key children, which helps to ensure that children's educational needs are met. Staff describe the manager as 'approachable' and 'supportive'. Staff receive regular supervision. However, supervision sessions do not focus on staff performance sharply enough to develop and raise the quality of curriculum to the highest level.
• Children show high levels of involvement in their play. They make many choices about what they would like to do and show enjoyment as they play with resources that spark their interest. For example, they enjoy exploring a jungle themed area where they use their senses as they explore with mini animal figures and natural materials. Children access a range of creative materials throughout the nursery. For example, they enjoy exploring with dough, water, mud and paints.
• Children learn the importance of following a healthy diet and lifestyle. They follow good hygiene routines and enjoy growing and trying different fruit and vegetables at snack time. Staff help children to be ready for school as they provide many opportunities to develop their independence. For example, children are supported to serve their own fruit and to put their coats and boots on before going outside to play.
• Children behave well. They receive consistent boundaries from staff, which helps them to understand the expectations for their behaviour. However, staff do not always teach children how to manage their feelings when they get frustrated. Nevertheless, children are starting to form some good friendships and are seen giggling together as they play. Children show keenness to please and enthusiastically help to put the toys away when the tidy-up music plays.
• Partnerships with parents and professionals are strong. Staff work effectively with parents to support their children's needs. For example, they help parents with early intervention strategies as required, and they create positive behaviour plans together to provide children with consistent targets. Parents comment fondly of the support the staff give and explain that they have regular meetings and discussions.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support children to learn how to manage their feelings and promote consistent boundaries for them
• assess the impact of mentoring, supervision and improvements made, to build on and help achieve the highest quality practice.