Little Robins Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children eagerly arrive at this welcoming nursery. They form good bonds with staff and develop positive social skills. Babies demonstrate that they feel safe and secure, exploring resources and snuggling up to staff to share books and when they feel tired. Toddlers show care and consideration as they carefully tuck in baby dolls with blankets and serve 'meals' to their peers from the toy kitchen. Older children enjoy playing board games together; they confidently tell adults how to play and what they need to do to win.

The manager has a clear vision of the curriculum and high expectations of staff and children. She knows what she wants children to learn as they move through the nursery and on to school. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress from their starting points.

Children develop very good listening and attention skills and learn to concentrate for long periods. Pre-school children thoroughly enjoy a story about the 'colour monster', developing their understanding of emotions. Staff support them extremely successfully to recall previous learning. Children know that 'authors' write stories and 'illustrators' draw pictures. Children wait their turn to talk about the feelings of the colour monsters. Staff extend children's learning about emotions further, such as encouraging them to look at their own faces in a mirror and mould dough to match their facial expressions.

Parents speak positively about the manager and staff and would recommend the nursery to their friends. They feel well informed about children's progress. Parents appreciate the information staff share with them, through meetings and reports, about their children on collection.

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

• The manager and her deputy are committed to providing a high-quality provision. They constantly observe and reflect on practice and proactively make changes to address identified areas for improvement. For example, they have recently updated their risk assessments and procedures to enhance information sharing with parents about babies' care routines. The manager uses additional funding well to benefit children. They have plans to develop the outdoor area further to enhance children's learning and development.
• The manager implements peer observations, staff appraisals and staff meetings to discuss staff's professional development and their emotional well-being. She provides staff with ongoing coaching, training and support. Staff say that they feel well supported in their roles and enjoy working at the nursery.
• Staff get to know children well. They use their observations and assessments alongside children's interests to implement a stimulating curriculum that motivates children to take part and learn. Staff are quick to identify any delays in development and work effectively with parents and other professionals to close gaps.
• Overall, children's behaviour throughout the nursery is good, and they play cooperatively together, such as completing floor puzzles and engaging in role-play activities. However, at times, staff do not give children clear explanations. For example, when toddlers throw sand in the air, staff tell them not to throw sand and to keep it in the tray. However, they do not explain that this is because it might go in their own or others' eyes.
• Children gain excellent self-care and independence skills in readiness for their next stage in education. For instance, they learn to manage their own personal hygiene and toileting, make decisions about their play, help to tidy away resources, serve themselves food and use cutlery competently.
• Staff provide children with a language-rich environment to support their communication and language skills. Staff challenge older children's thinking, such as encouraging them to finish off sentences in stories and rhymes or ask them what may happen next. Staff introduce new words to extend the vocabulary of toddlers, such as 'narwhal' and 'seahorse'. Staff are quick to respond to younger babies' babble to support conversation skills. Occasionally, however, staff do not make full use of opportunities to further extend the language skills of the oldest babies as well as possible. Nevertheless, babies and toddlers thoroughly enjoy regular nursery rhymes and songs, and they eagerly join in with the actions.
• Children enjoy being active. Staff provide them with a wealth of opportunities to practise their physical skills, indoors and outdoors. Babies move confidently over and around equipment, pulling themselves up to standing to explore sand in a tray. Children run, crawl, balance and jump over obstacles and enthusiastically bang wooden spatulas on the metallic 'sound wall'. Children develop muscles in their fingers in preparation for writing. Babies learn to use glue spreaders for their craftwork. Toddlers knead bread dough and notice changes in size as the dough rests. Older children use small building blocks to construct intricate models and competently use hammers to knock pins into cork boards.
• Staff weave mathematics into activities and routines throughout the day. Older children talk about shapes and sizes, confidently count, recognise numerals up to 10, and learn to make simple calculations.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on staff's skills and confidence to improve the quality of teaching to a consistently high level to enhance the language development of older babies even further
• give children clear explanations about the consequences of their actions to reinforce their understanding of the behaviour expectations.