Little Oaks Day Nursery & Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and thrive at the nursery. They form strong bonds with caring and attentive staff. Staff ensure children's emotional needs are met, which helps children to settle quickly and feel confident to explore. Staff plan an ambitious curriculum based on what children already know and need to learn next. Children behave very well as staff support all children to play together. For instance, staff encourage babies and young children to take turns. Children are confident communicators and develop good social skills. They happily chat to their friends and staff, demonstrating a strong sense of self as they talk about family members and pets. They keenly introduce themselves to visitors and ask their name. Staff encourage good manners and offer children regular praise. As a result, children show positive attitudes to learning. Staff take opportunities to extend and reinforce children's knowledge. For instance, after reading a story about a hungry caterpillar, staff ask, 'Why should we eat fruit?' Children eagerly reply, 'To make us strong!'

All children make good progress, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those in receipt of additional funding. The manager uses funding effectively to support children's individual learning needs. Staff link with schools, parents and other professionals to promote the best possible outcomes for all children.

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

• The leadership and management of the setting are strong. The manager values her dedicated staff. She meets with them regularly, both individually and as a team. The manager encourages staff to reflect on their practice and ensures they have access to regular training to strengthen their knowledge and skills. The manager places a strong focus on the well-being of staff. She knows that it is important to promote team morale to provide a harmonious learning environment for children.
• Staff closely monitor children's progress. They take swift action to close any emerging gaps in children's learning and development. The knowledgeable special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) helps staff to support children with SEND well. Staff use strategies such as visual aids to help children follow routines and communicate their needs. Staff act on advice from other professionals to successfully implement children's individualised learning plans successfully. They have a strong partnership with the local school and share information with Reception teachers to ensure children's smooth transition to school when the time comes.
• Staff support children's communication skills well. They provide interesting learning experiences that stimulate children's curiosity and language skills. For example, older children show their awe and wonder about the world as they learn about butterflies. Children are eager to find out more and ask staff, 'Did the butterfly pop out of the caterpillar's chest?'. Staff read stories to babies with props to engage their attention. Staff encourage them to copy animal sounds, and babies excitedly respond with 'quack-quack'. However, on occasions, staff working with babies speak too quickly and repeatedly use long sentences. This does not always help babies to understand and acquire new words to further develop their vocabulary.
• Staff plan group learning experiences to teach children new skills. For instance, they help children to learn some letter sounds to support their early literacy skills. However, staff do not always consider the varying abilities of children when leading the group activity. This means that some children struggle to engage fully because the learning activity is beyond their stage of development.
• Staff support all children to become independent. They encourage babies to feed themselves finger food and support younger children to use cutlery at mealtimes. Older children learn how to put on their coats and shoes and take care of their belongings. This helps children to develop valuable skills for the future.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. On induction, staff seek information from parents about children and learn about care routines at home. This enables staff to ensure continuity in care for children at the setting. Parents are highly complimentary about the staff team. They feel well informed about their child's progress and value the collaborative relationship they have with staff. Parents are impressed with how well staff prepare children for the move to school but also comment, 'I wish my child could stay at the nursery forever'.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's interactions in the baby room to help the youngest children to understand and acquire new words to support their growing vocabulary
• support staff to recognise the varying abilities of children when implementing group activities so that teaching is developmentally appropriate and supports all children to make the best possible progress.