Little Hands Daycare Stourbridge

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are excited to arrive at the nursery. They receive a warm welcome from familiar staff who are kind and nurturing towards them. Children form close relationships with staff and are happy and contented in their care. They readily go to staff for comfort and cuddles, which they receive in abundance. This helps them to feel safe and secure in their care. Staff use their highly effective skills to engage children in purposeful learning during play and routines. For example, pre-toddlers are motivated and eager to explore role play, taking out jugs, play food and utensils. Staff comment on what children do next and children smile and pause, to wait for their commentary. Staff include action words in the context of what is taking place, for children to hear and understand.

Children's behaviour is exemplary. This is because staff use a gentle approach to help children learn about and understand their emotions and their impact on others. Staff intentionally model kind and respectful behaviours between themselves and children. Over time, children make very rapid progress. They develop the skills and understanding they need to enable them to make and sustain friendships with their peers and are very well prepared for their move on to school.

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

• Leaders include all staff in the design and sequencing of the setting's curriculum. The curriculum has highly ambitious intentions for what all children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, can achieve. Staff have expert knowledge of child development and make adaptations to the curriculum to ensure that they meet all children's learning needs effectively.
• Staff make excellent use of the information they gather from parents when children first start about their prior experiences and their progress so far. They use this information meticulously to decide where children are developing and to make precise decisions about what they are ready to learn next.
• The support that leaders provide for staff is exemplary. Staff receive highly rigorous training and coaching that are tailored to support individual staff in the areas they need to reach their exceptionally high standards and understanding to enhance all areas of teaching practice. As a result, the quality of staff teaching is consistently high across all areas of the nursery.
• Staff are innovative in their ideas to engage children in exciting and purposeful play experiences. For example, tidying away is equally as fun as the activity. Children delight in completing the tasks to collect matching items to put away. They watch with awe and wonder as staff place a towel on some remaining liquid. Staff build anticipation for what will happen next. Children gasp with excitement as they find that the liquid has disappeared, while staff explain how the liquid was absorbed by the towel.
• Pre-school children learn how to play cooperatively and begin to learn how to share. For example, staff provide foam tiles as children use their imaginations and decide to build a pathway across 'lava'. Staff initially facilitate turn-taking, and children continue this, deciding whose turn is next. Children work together successfully and then agree to take turns to run up and down the pathway, grinning and giggling together.
• The promotion of communication and language is of utmost priority in the nursery. Staff skilfully adapt their teaching to ensure children develop the language and understanding they need. For example, to help very young children know how to tidy away, staff embark on a simple game, giving simply structured sentences as they comment on what they are doing, such as 'Red car, put it away'. They repeat this pattern until children begin to say this for themselves while putting away the cars. This helps children to gain a deeper knowledge of how to form sentences, while also understanding their meaning.
• Children make rapid progress in their independence and become secure in these lifelong skills. For example, pre-toddlers learn to feed themselves, using appropriate cutlery and utensils. Toddlers learn to manage self-help skills, such as managing their personal care and dressing in outdoor clothing. The oldest children show high levels of confidence in their abilities as these skills are fully embedded by the time they move on to school.
• Partnerships with parents are highly effective. Parents comment that they receive regular opportunities to meet with their child's key person to discuss their child's learning progress and agree on their next steps in learning. Staff provide a varied range of workshops for parents to attend, in the setting and online. These workshops support key areas of children's development, including managing behaviour, toilet training and preparation for school, and parents say they are invaluable.