Little Learners Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children eagerly arrive, excited to learn at the well-presented setting created by staff. They confidently share their ideas with their friends and make choices in their play. Children work together to build rockets out of three-dimensional shapes, happily sharing resources. Children laugh hysterically as staff joke, 'Don't crash the rocket'. They pretend to stick the shapes together with 'icky, sticky, super, duper glue that never comes off', and enjoy practising with other rhyming words. Children develop their imagination, finding objects to pretend to be 'stinky glue', charging staff £2 to purchase it. Children learn a range of new words with staff as they talk about things, such as making a 'batch' of glue and they can explain what this means.

Children have strong bonds with staff and can go to any member of staff for guidance or reassurance when they need it. They are highly engaged in their chosen play and curious about things they have not experienced before. Children are highly motivated by staff's praise and are, therefore, keen to try things for themselves. They listen to staff and follow their instructions while making snacks to toast on the fire pit. They cut banana independently and solve how to stop the tin foil blowing in the wind. Children behave extremely well and understand what staff expect of them during the day, including using their manners. Children say goodbye to their friends as they go home and develop their social interaction skills throughout the day.

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

• Staff know the children well and talk about their individual personalities and what interests them. They assess what children know and can do, supporting them with what they need to learn next and addressing any gaps in their learning. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Staff support children to feel a sense of responsibility and understand further about helping the world around them. For example, staff take children on trips to the beach, where they learn about sustainability and how to look after their community and local wildlife.
• Staff plan a wide range of activities for all children. Younger children enjoy making play dough with staff. They imitate key words that staff repeat, including 'shake', as they practise tipping flour into a bowl. Staff support children to develop their hand muscles using different spoons to stir the ingredients and pouring water from jugs. Occasionally, some staff only support children with what they want them to learn from an activity and narrow the learning opportunities children have. This means some children do not make the progress they are capable of during some activities.
• Staff interact well with children to develop their communication and speech.
• From a young age, children listen carefully as staff read books to them. Children clap and smile while copying the animal noises staff make when reading. Staff encourage children to point at different pictures while talking to them about what they can see, supporting children to associate words and pictures.
• Staff encourage children to serve their own dinner, while being courteous and making sure there is enough for everyone. Children know to wash their hands before eating and staff talk to them about why this keeps them healthy. Children are praised when they invite others to join in with their play. They tell each other rules, such as not getting water on the floor as it might make it slippery.
• Leaders and managers support the staff team and take care of their well-being. They reflect on the experiences of children and provide a wide range of training opportunities for staff to develop their skills. Leaders sourced communication training for some key staff. This has been shared with the full staff team, so that all children benefit from this new staff knowledge.
• On the whole, parents and carers are happy with the service provided by staff. They feel 'confident and relaxed' with all staff and feel well supported with children's dietary and medical needs. Some parents and carers comment that communication from staff about how they are supporting children with what they need to learn is not strong enough for them to make sure they can consistently support children's learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve the use of information sharing between key people and parents and carers to strengthen the consistency of support provided to children
• provide staff with further support to be able to recognise and make the most of learning opportunities during activities.