Little Parrotts ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are warmly welcomed into this home-from-home nursery by the nurturing and friendly staff who know them so well. Babies and children feel safe and settle extremely smoothly. This is because staff provide bespoke settling-in procedures, which prioritises children's emotional well-being from the start. Children enjoy exploring a wide variety of sensory activities. They have fun investigating with different materials such as water, sand and crafts. Children benefit from trips to the local park and experience the awe and wonder of hatching chicks in spring.

Staff understand the individual learning needs of children. They spend time engaging in one-to-one teaching to extend children's natural interests and curiosities they show in their play. For example, attentive staff extend children's fascination with countries. Together, they identify the flags of different countries and find them on the world globe. Children discover and explore the countries in deeper depth as staff show them pictures online. This sparks questions and discussions that extend children's speech and language development while building on their existing knowledge of the wider world. Children also learn behaviours that keep them safe when using technology.

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

• A key-person system and regular team meetings focus on the planning of children's next steps in learning. Good assessment processes are used to track children's overall progress. This ensures any gaps in children's learning are identified swiftly. Staff work closely with parents and other professionals to create individually tailored plans for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. This ensures all children make good progress from their starting points.
• Parents highly praise this inclusive nursery. They appreciate daily face-to-face communication and regular updates through an online platform. Staff express excellent support from the management team, including ongoing, high-quality training.
• Overall, teaching is good. Skilful staff know how children learn and develop. For example, staff provide babies with plenty of opportunities to practise new skills, such as standing for good periods of time exploring sensory tabletop activities. In addition, they offer floor activities that encourage babies to crawl around and reach for toys.
• Staff carefully plan a daily adult-led activity to focus on specific learning intentions for children. For instance, children become engrossed in a sensory activity that provides the opportunity to investigate natural materials, such as water and real flowers. They explore textures, scents and examine the interesting resources using a magnifying glass. As children attempt to cut the flower petals, staff help them to hold scissors correctly and safely. This helps to extend children's fine motor skills.
• The management team understands the need for the close monitoring of staff practice to ensure they are continually meeting individual children's needs. However, at times, they do not ensure staff plan effectively and consistently to extend children's learning outcomes.
• Children enjoy the continual access to safe outdoor play. The available resources outdoors are easily accessible to children. However, staff do not fully consider how these consistently provide choice or remain appealing to all children. This reduces the opportunities available to ensure children always have the best possibilities to extend all areas of their learning and development.
• Children are starting to learn right from wrong, as staff provide meaningful praise when they are kind, share and take turns with others. Sometimes, staff do not provide clear explanations about why certain behaviours are inappropriate, or implement successful strategies they have available, to help children fully understand the impact their actions have on others.
• Children follow well-established hygiene routines and independently wash their hands before eating. Every room is organised to promote independence and a sense of belonging. Babies learn to feed themselves with lots of encouragement from staff. Older children serve their own food and dress themselves to support school readiness.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review and monitor the quality of teaching more closely to ensure that planning is highly responsive to all children's needs and consistently builds on their next steps in learning
• continue to develop the outdoor environment to support children's learning of the intended curriculum, especially for those children who prefer to learn outside
• implement effective teaching strategies to consistently support children to manage their own feelings and develop positive behaviours.