Little Rascals

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make a strong start to their learning in this warm and nurturing nursery. Babies are helped to build strong bonds with the experienced staff team, and they smoothly settle into nursery life. Children make good progress overall and are well prepared for the next stage of their learning, including starting school. Staff make good use of their knowledge of children's interests and abilities to plan for their learning and help them become independent and confident. For instance, children learn how to work together and create their own challenging obstacle courses to ride their trikes and scooters through.

Children feel safe, learn to behave well and show concern for each other. They rise to staff's high expectations and are polite and thoughtful to others. For instance, they encourage other children to join in their counting and number matching game, take their turn and listen to each other's answers. Children learn to take sensible risks and challenge themselves. Babies become increasingly confident, for example to explore new sensory activities. Parents appreciate how children have learned to cross the road safely through their play in the exciting outdoor spaces.

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

• Staff promote children's speaking and listening skills well overall. Babies enjoy singing rhymes such as 'Round and round the garden' and excitedly anticipating the ending. Staff engage children in friendly conversations as they play. However, staff do not always fully enrich and extend children's vocabulary. For instance, using words that are too simple and not as exciting as they could be.
• The nursery strongly supports children with SEND. They identify gaps in children's learning and development at an early stage. Staff work closely with children's parents and other professionals, such as speech therapists, to plan future learning. They make good use of additional funding to, for example, offer sensory play experiences to help children's emotional well-being or training to support children's specific needs.
• Staff support children's love of books. They build children's experiences as they progress through nursery by, for example, introducing them to new and different fiction and non-fiction in the 'Book of the week'. Staff read stories in ways that engage and stimulate their further learning. For instance, two-year-old children are inspired by the story of 'The Gingerbread Man'. They create their own gingerbread-shaped pancakes with gingerbread-scented play dough they have mixed.
• Staff promote children's good behaviour and personal development well. Staff successfully encourage children to say 'please' and 'thank you' throughout their play and healthy snack times. They support children to make decisions and persist in activities. They skilfully help children who find it hard to manage their emotions to learn to play with others and control their behaviour.
• Staff help children to develop their physical control and body management. Children are encouraged to make patterns in their water wall painting and in paints and sand. Babies love to immerse themselves in paint and water. Children use thick and fine paint brushes and pens in their drawings and paintings. They develop their use of scissors from, for example, simple snips on the edge of the paper to following lines as they make their imaginatively decorated kites. These skills help to prepare them for their later writing development.
• Parents highly recommend the nursery. They very much appreciate the warm and caring attitudes the staff show towards their children and themselves. They welcome the guidance they are given on supporting their children's learning at home and involvement in nursery life through, for instance, parent workshops and the leavers' picnic.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus staff's professional development on strongly supporting children's development of a rich and exciting vocabulary.