Little Peeps Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a nurturing environment where children's voices are heard and valued. This leads to children that are confident to express their own interests, wants and views. Staff promote children's independence and give them numerous opportunities to make choices and develop their skills. For example, children select their own plates, cups and cutlery for snack time. They pour their own drinks, cut their own snacks and use the toaster to make toast. Staff praise the children and children demonstrate pride in their achievements.

Children demonstrate their positive attitudes to learning through high levels of curiosity, concentration and enjoyment. They engage well with the activities on offer to them, work together to solve problems and use tools and resources to enhance their own play. They listen intently and respond positively to adults and each other. Children demonstrate learning by reciting previous experiences and demonstrating skills they have learned, for example using a tape measure to measure objects. They talk about size, predict how long objects are and use the tape measure appropriately, holding it in the right way and using the button to secure it.

Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. As a result, children behave very well. When children struggle with regulating their behaviour, staff take appropriate action to support them. Children use the skills they are being taught to manage disagreements and resolve conflict.

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

• Staff read to children in a way that excites and engages them, introducing new ideas, concepts and words. Children use a voting system to choose which story is read at story time. They select which book they would like to hear and listen intently as it is read to them. Children also select and handle books independently. They carefully turn the pages and look at what they can see in the pictures. Children enjoy talking to each other, and the staff, about what is happening in the book. They recite familiar stories.
• Parents speak highly about the setting. They praise the staff team for the care and education it provides to the children. Parents talk about improvements that have taken place over the past year and how these have had a positive impact. Parents feel communication is effective and they feel involved in their child's learning. Parents also comment about the sense of community the setting creates.
• Staff have excellent knowledge of their key children. They are able to identify and talk about the child's strengths and any areas of concern they may have. They talk at length about how they support and extend children's learning so they make good progress. Staff demonstrate that they understand the areas of learning they teach and the way in which young children learn.
• Leaders have a clear and ambitious vision for providing high-quality, inclusive care and education to all. The intent to provide all children with a broad and ambitious curriculum is clear, and aims to support all children to meet their full potential and prepare them for the next stage in their learning and development.
• Staff are highly responsive to the children. They help them to soothe when they become upset, engage them in interaction, ask lots of questions, use a variety of teaching methods and praise the children with positive language. However, the questions asked are often in quick succession and children appear overwhelmed. Staff try to create a language-rich environment, but the use of questions in quick succession has an impact on the children's ability to think, respond and communicate what they know.
• Leaders work in partnership with other professionals, agencies and children's parents to ensure that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported to make good progress. They hold regular meetings to share information, and access training to ensure children are provided with the additional support they require.
• Leaders work hard to regularly reflect on their practice to drive continuous improvement. They use parent feedback, evaluation of their practice and research of different approaches to identify areas in which they can improve. They have a clear vision of what they want to implement in the setting going forwards to continue to provide the best possible care and education for the children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on staff's questioning techniques to enable children to have more time to think, respond and verbalise what they know.