Little Men And Misses @ Hollymoor

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy the time they spend at the nursery. Staff support their social skills and emotional security well. Older children play together happily. They readily welcome their friends into their chosen activity, such as reading a book, listening to music and dancing together. Babies form close bonds with staff.

Staff help all children to progress well in their learning. They ensure that older children are well prepared for their move to school. Younger children gain the skills they need to confidently move to the next age group room. This includes developing their independence and an increased ability to manage everyday tasks for themselves, such as personal care routines and mealtime routines. Children are well motivated to learn.

Staff support children's communication and language development skilfully. This helps children to become confident communicators and progress well from their starting points. Babies make their needs and wishes known and copy words that staff use, such as 'roll it' as they play with dough with their hands. Children listen attentively to stories, tell staff that the story is 'funny', and use number names in their play. Older children use descriptive language to express their good ideas. They describe moisture on a fresh fish and explain how it is 'sweating and melting'.

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

• Leaders, reflect well on the service they provide. They value the views of staff, parents and children to identify further areas for development. They took into consideration everyone's views to make changes and ensure that parents continued to receive regular updates about their child's learning during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic.
• Overall, leaders provide staff with good support to extend their knowledge and skills. However, they have not identified where staff need further support to extend the challenge for two-year-old children and older children. Some staff need further guidance to help them to focus even more precisely on what children need to learn next. This said, leaders and staff closely monitor the progress that children make and take effective steps to help close any gaps in children's achievements.
• Staff plan a wide range of interesting learning experiences for children indoors and outdoors. For example, babies develop their physical strength as they stretch forward and use their hands to scoop slices of lemon from a bowl of water. They enjoy using their senses to explore the fruit. Babies also strengthen their hand and shoulder muscles, such as by squeezing dough and brushing the floor. However, staff and leaders slightly limit the opportunities for children to tackle new physical challenges and experiment with their large body movements, particularly when using physical play equipment.
• Staff support children's early literacy skills well. Two-year-old children thoroughly enjoy sharing a familiar book with staff. They remember parts of the story and join in with their favourite parts. Staff skilfully support children's understanding of the language in the book. For example, children show they understand what 'wagging' means as they wag their arms like a dog's tail. Older children learn that the marks they make on paper have meaning.
• Parent partnerships are strong. Parents explain that they feel relaxed leaving their children at the nursery because they feel their children are safe.
• Staff have high expectations of children. They help children to learn what they expect from them. Children learn to share, take turns and to be kind to others. They talk about feelings and suggest ideas to cheer up a character in a book who is sad. Older children learn how decisions can be made by voting.
• Leaders and staff provide children with a wide range of experiences to help them to learn more about the local community. Children learn about diversity. For example, older children talk about similarities and differences, such as eye colour.
• Staff support children's health well. Children enjoy nutritious meals, snacks and healthy drinks. They learn about the importance of cleaning their teeth and good hygiene routines. Older children learn to risk assess their play areas to identify and eliminate potential hazards.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff to focus even more precisely on what children need to learn next to challenge them even further in their learning
• extend the opportunities for children to tackle new physical challenges to help them fully explore their range of large body movements.