Little Pebbles Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive at this warm and nurturing setting. Leaders and other staff are friendly and welcoming to children and their families. They welcome them warmly each morning and invite parents regularly into the setting for special events, such as the recent Mother's Day celebration. This helps families to feel part of the nursery community.

Leaders and staff have high expectations of what children should achieve during their time at the setting. Staff understand the progress that children have made and what their next steps are. They then plan how to help children to reach these next steps. This helps children to make good progress.

Staff form warm, positive relationships with children. They meet children's emotional needs well and support them well if they need extra comfort. Children behave very well. They understand the clear expectations that staff put in place. Children respond well to the enthusiastic praise that staff give them throughout the day. For example, children beam with pride as staff exclaim, 'Wow! You shared with your friend so well'. The staff talk respectfully to each other and model to the children how to use good manners, such as saying 'please' and 'thank you'. This helps children to understand how to interact with their peers.

Staff implement clear and consistent routines so that children have a good understanding of what will happen during the day. For example, after lunch, children go to find their bed and calmly and happily lie down to go to sleep. These well-embedded routines help children to feel safe and secure at nursery.

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

• Leaders plan an effective curriculum for communication and language. Staff get down to children's level and narrate as they play. They read lots of stories to children. Interactions between staff and children are usually of high quality. Staff pick up well on what children say and support them to extend their sentences. This means that children progress well in their communication and language development.
• On occasion, staff do not model accurate language to children, such as when they say, 'Shall we go garden'. On these occasions, this does not support children to use the correct sentence structures.
• Staff support children who speak English as an additional language well, by communicating with them in their home language where appropriate. This helps children to develop a sense of pride in the languages they speak, as well as supporting children to make progress in their language development.
• Staff help children to make good progress in their mathematical development.
• They integrate counting into activities throughout the day and help children to identify shapes around them. Staff use mathematical language as they play with children. For example, they discuss how containers are 'half-full' or 'half-empty' and support children to use this language. Children begin to understand early mathematical concepts.
• Staff teach children to be kind and caring and to develop empathy for each other. For example, they praise children when they get a tissue for their peer and talk about how children are feeling throughout the day. Children build warm relationships with their peers and engage well together in play, for example when they work together to bring water to the mud kitchen to make mud pies.
• Staff give children many opportunities to develop their self-care and independence skills. Pre-schoolers confidently serve their food themselves and carry it back to their table. Toddlers pour their own water and get tissues when they need them. This helps children to prepare for the next stage of their learning, such as school.
• Leaders understand what good practice looks like. They provide regular feedback and training opportunities for staff to help them to improve their practice. Leaders support staff well to progress in their careers by helping them to gain qualifications, where relevant. This helps staff to feel valued.
• Staff identify early any children with special educational needs and/or disabilities or children who may need extra support. The special educational needs coordinator sets individual targets for these children and supports staff with strategies to help children to achieve their targets. Where necessary, leaders involve relevant external professionals so that children get the support they need to make good progress on their individual learning journeys.
• Leaders build strong parent partnerships. Parents speak extremely positively about the nursery. They consistently feed back that they value the warmth of the staff and the daily feedback that they receive about what their children have been doing at nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff so that their speaking of English consistently models accurate language to children.