Little Horton Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The diverse, bilingual staff team offers families a warm and friendly greeting. Children enter the welcoming nursery with excitement and familiarity. For example, they find their labelled peg to hang up their coat. Staff offer a reassuring cuddle and comfort to children who are a little upset on arrival. This helps them to feel safe and secure and they soon play happily. Overall, staff plan effective educational programmes that give children a good start in life and a wide range of experiences that help them to make progress.

Children over two are especially keen learners who develop independence and skills, such as good focus and concentration, in readiness for school. For example, they thoroughly enjoy investigating tactile media, such as pink shaving foam and brushing model teeth. Staff provide children with excellent opportunities to learn about nature and the world around them. For example, children are excited to point out the tomatoes growing in the garden beds, but not yet ripe enough to pick.

Staff model important social skills and kind and respectful behaviours. This is reflected in children sharing resources, developing early friendships and demonstrating excellent behaviour. For example, older children play collaboratively during activities and take turns to use equipment, such as the hammock. Toddlers from the baby room delight in joining in with the short 'Good Morning' song and story session. They place their photograph on the registration board with support from staff.

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

• Staff provide a wealth of exciting tactile resources in the baby room that enable babies and toddlers to explore and investigate freely. However, some adult-led craft activities and the outdoor environment are not precisely aligned to their stage of learning and interests.
• Staff plan a broad range of engaging activities for children over two. They enrich children's experiences through outings and visitors who deliver rhyme time and music and movement sessions, for example.
• Staff monitor children's progress closely. They put in place early interventions and make referrals to other professionals to help children with a developmental delay to catch up with their peers.
• Children have many opportunities to develop important physical skills. For example, babies pull themselves to a standing position using sturdy furniture and toddlers manoeuvre wheeled toys. Two-year-old children use large circular movements as they make marks with chunky brushes and water. Older children balance on wooden beams and have great fun using the hammock.
• Staff promote children's small-muscle development exceptionally well. For example, babies grasp finger foods and are learning to hold a feeder cup. Toddlers confidently use a spoon and place metallic rings onto the wooden rod. Two-year-old children build towers with rectangular boxes and scoop sand into containers, and older children use dough tools and gardening equipment.
• Staff in the baby room create a calm and nurturing environment; babies and toddlers develop secure emotional attachments to them. Toddlers are familiar with daily routines. For example, when staff suggest playing outside, they readily go to find their coats.
• Staff effectively instil early messages about healthy lifestyles. For example, children learn where nutritious food comes from as they harvest food. They enjoy substantial, wholesome meals that are freshly prepared by the nursery cook. A key focus of the nursery is to improve children's oral health. As staff read a story, children have immense fun taking part in physical activity as they waddle like a penguin, jump like a frog and stomp like an elephant.
• Staff's qualifications and continued professional development opportunities have a generally positive impact on their practice. For example, they enthusiastically sing songs, read stories and interact with children as they play. However, staff do not consistently motivate children and build on their speech to a high enough level. This is especially important, given the high percentage of children who speak English as an additional language.
• Staff involve parents in supporting children's learning, for example, through the nursery library and nursery bear, who families take home with his bedtime story. Staff involve parents in special events, such as children's graduation, and multi-cultural celebrations.
• Staff share information with parents, for instance verbally, electronically and through parent's evenings and displays, such as those highlighting the importance of reading to children. However, the provider does not monitor this to ensure arrangements are consistent and inclusive, especially given the recent changes to staffing after moving two-year-old children into their own room.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• take greater account of babies' and toddler's stage of learning and interests when planning the outdoor learning environment and adult-led activities
• provide more targeted coaching, mentoring and support for staff, to help them to strengthen the quality of their interactions and deliver the curriculum for children's speech and language to a higher level
• consistently share information with parents about their children's care and learning, especially those who speak English as an additional language or are less confident with the use of technology.