Little Locos Day Nursery

Inclusion: Strong standard

Leaders have established a highly inclusive culture, where every member of staff shares responsibility for ensuring that all children thrive. Practitioners are vigilant in recognising emerging needs and respond promptly, ensuring that all barriers to learning are identified early and children receive timely intervention and support. Staff ensure they follow a well-embedded approach, where children's needs are carefully assessed, planned for, implemented and reviewed alongside parents and carers. Staff skilfully make adaptations to teaching, routines and the environment, which enables children to access the curriculum fully. All children, including those in receipt of funding, consistently make sustained progress from their individual starting points.

Leaders work in close partnership with parents, external professionals and local agencies to ensure that support is responsive, coordinated and centred around each child's individual needs. They continually engage with current research, local authority guidance and specialist advice to strengthen practice and ensure the provision remains effective. Additional funding is used strategically to maximise outcomes for children, including investment in specialist equipment, manual-handling training, sign language training and enhanced staffing where appropriate. These carefully considered decisions ensure that children can participate fully in all aspects of nursery life.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, alongside those with other barriers to learning, receive highly personalised support that enables them to flourish. All staff have an excellent understanding of each child's strengths, interests and next steps, ensuring that learning is adapted to meet individual needs. As a result, children make consistently strong progress, develop increasing independence and are very well prepared for the next stage in their learning.

Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard

Leaders work effectively with staff to deliver an ambitious and inclusive curriculum that reflects children's ages, stages and individual needs. Staff have high expectations for every child. Staff identify and address emerging gaps in learning through consistently strong teaching. Children benefit from calm, well-established routines that maximise learning. Staff plan transitions with care. Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, receive sensitive one-to-one reassurance. Children feel safe, secure and ready to learn.

Staff recognise the value of every interaction. Staff prioritise language development through purposeful conversations, singing and engaging group experiences. Babies eagerly explore puppets during 'What's in the Box?' sessions. Toddlers confidently use sign language through familiar songs. Older children recall events, answer questions and enjoy stories borrowed during community library visits.

Staff use children's next steps to plan meaningful learning that builds on prior knowledge. Staff weave mathematics naturally into everyday experiences. Children count in the sandpit, compare size during creative play and represent numbers using their fingers during favourite songs. Children develop strong physical skills. They scoop sand with small shells, manipulate play dough with tools and explore colour mixing with their fingers. Outdoors, children balance, run, jump and strengthen their hand-eye coordination through ball games. Children build securely on what they already know and can do. Children make consistently good progress and achieve highly across all seven areas of learning.

Achievement: Strong standard

Children, especially those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, and those facing additional barriers, make significant progress. For example, some children join with limited mobility and language skills but quickly begin crawling, babbling and repeating familiar words. Children who speak English as an additional language progress from having no English vocabulary to singing and communicating in 2-word sentences. This progress is supported by strong multi-agency working between staff, external professionals and families, ensuring a shared approach to learning and support.

Children make consistently strong progress across all rooms. Staff understand the small steps in learning and carefully build on children's existing knowledge and skills. Babies develop increasing independence as they hold their own beakers. Toddlers progress to drinking without lids and then to using open cups. Children gain confidence in feeding themselves from an early age. Toddlers learn to use a fork and knife with growing control. Pre-school children independently serve their own meals and pour their own water with confidence. Children develop the secure foundations needed for future learning. Staff monitor progress through regular assessment and ongoing discussions with parents. Leaders ensure that children's achievements are recognised and celebrated.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Children behave very well and show positive attitudes to learning. Clear routines help them to understand expectations and feel secure. High staffing levels ensure timely support, particularly for children with additional needs or barriers to learning.

The nursery promotes a calm, harmonious and respectful culture. Children are supported to recognise, understand and manage their emotions, helping them to feel emotionally secure and ready to engage in learning.

Practitioners model respectful, caring relationships in every interaction. They reinforce kindness, empathy and respect, helping children understand how to treat others in the nursery and the wider community. Children play confidently alongside and with one another, collaborating in garden games, playing together in an airport role play and enjoying shared play, such as 'peekaboo'. Staff recognise and praise these positive interactions, supporting children to build secure friendships, cooperate successfully and show growing consideration for others.

Leaders use clear procedures, including family communication, welfare checks and attendance meetings where needed, to support regular attendance. They also work proactively with families, including those with barriers to learning, by providing home-learning resources, such as Easter bonnet craft packs and pumpkins for family competitions. These initiatives strengthen partnerships with parents, promote continued learning at home and reinforce the value of children's education beyond the nursery.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Staff create a nurturing environment where every child is known, valued and supported to thrive. The well-embedded key-person approach helps children build secure attachments with familiar adults. Babies and toddlers seek cuddles from staff when they feel overwhelmed or need reassurance. Staff use a range of strategies to help children express how they are feeling. Staff know their key children and the wider cohort well, and can confidently explain children's interests, development and next steps.

Leaders place children's welfare and wellbeing at the centre of practice. They review upcoming policy changes and act promptly. For example, they ensure that sleep and mealtime routines meet the latest guidance. Leaders and practitioners understand children, families and the local community well. They respond sensitively to changing circumstances and individual needs, which help to reduce any barriers to wellbeing and development.

Daily routines promote healthy habits in meaningful ways. Children brush their teeth at nursery and enjoy balanced meals. They plant in the mini allotment and take regular walks in the community, which promotes exercise. Children independently wash their hands and access beakers and bottles without prompting. Younger children care for pretend babies, fetching tissues to wipe their noses before putting them in the bin and taking them for walks around the room. These consistent experiences help children develop independence, confidence and a secure understanding of how to look after themselves and others.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

Leaders work exceptionally well with families and external professionals to secure the best possible outcomes for children. Leaders and staff have built effective parent partnerships, which ensure that learning, care and support are consistent between home and nursery. Parents are actively involved in assessments and target setting. There is genuine collaboration in their child's education. Parents speak highly of the personalised communication and feel listened to, valued and involved in their child's learning journey.

Leaders use detailed and perceptive self-evaluation to understand the setting's strengths and areas for development. They are adaptive and responsive, continually refining provision to secure excellence for all children. For example, they have started maths initiative programmes to strengthen challenge and extend mathematical opportunities across the nursery.

A culture of high expectations, professionalism and continuous improvement is embedded across the setting. Staff receive regular supervision and feedback to build on their skills and enhance children's experiences. They feel valued and recognise the investment in their professional development. Regular training equips staff to fulfil their roles and make a consistently positive difference to children's education and care.

Leaders are ambitious in their commitment to supporting and being involved in the community. For example, the children have been planting at the local church and enjoying reading sessions with local schools. This builds upon children's sense of belonging. Leaders understand the value of a connected community in helping children grow and thrive, and are striving to build upon this further.