Little Scarecrows

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide a stimulating and exciting environment for children. Children flourish in the care of skilled and sensitive practitioners. They quickly settle and form close, nurturing bonds with all staff. This supports them to feel safe and secure and able to benefit from all the many experiences on offer. Children smile throughout the day, run to staff to share in their achievements and giggle with each other as they play. Children are highly inclusive and enjoy making space for their friends to join in and sharing resources with them.

All staff are accomplished at providing a curriculum that is ambitious and ensures that all children make excellent progress. Activities are carefully planned around children's interests to entice them into learning. Staff deliver teaching in an engaging way. They ask questions and use consistently high-quality conversations to extend and build on existing knowledge. Children show awe and wonder as they explore the jungle, make magic potions and discover hidden bugs in spaghetti.

Children are highly motivated to join in. They are engrossed in each and every activity and given ample time to explore. They enjoy recalling previous learning as they excitedly call out the names of different shapes and wild animals. They demonstrate great perseverance in mastering tricky skills, such as cutting, threading and blowing big bubbles. They thrive on gaining new knowledge and sharing this with the staff and their parents. Children are very well prepared to move on to school as confident, happy, inquisitive and enthusiastic learners.

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

• Leaders and staff ensure that they are constantly providing an ambitious curriculum that is relevant to children's needs and interests. Learning is expertly scaffolded to build on children's prior knowledge, and activities are linked to each other. For example, children learn about the jungle and plants. They later plant a herb garden and then relish in making magic herb potions. This provides children with a rich variety of activities, where they gain a deeper understanding and knowledge base across the curriculum.
• Staff are naturally skilled at weaving mathematics into all activities. Older children are challenged to think about what number is one more than a given number and to estimate how much pasta they will need to fill different containers. Younger children count the bubbles as they chase and pop them in the garden, and they count the spots on butterfly wings.
• Children are immersed in a language-rich environment. Staff effortlessly build children's speech and language skills through meaningful conversations. They are aware of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and make every effort to ensure they make excellent progress. Staff use a greater depth of questioning and constantly introduce new language. Children explore different textures, using the words 'sticky' and 'prickly'. They learn the words 'deep', 'push' and 'cover' when planting. Children are also offered many opportunities to learn early writing skills. They delight in painting and drawing their favourite story characters, writing their names and creating labels for plants.
• Children become deeply engrossed in their learning. They spend extended periods of time concentrating on making the perfect threading picture or building a house from construction blocks. Staff support them to problem solve with confidence. They talk excitedly about each activity and learn highly valuable skills, such as attentive listening and critical thinking.
• Huge importance is placed on supporting children's emotional health and well-being. Staff help children to understand and name different emotions in small-group times. If children are ever upset, staff sit alongside them and calmly acknowledge their feelings. Through skilful interactions, they enable children to find their own ways to deal with emotions, and they are quickly back to being engaged in effective play. For example, when children are missing home, staff support them to think about home in a positive way. They ask children what they would like to do at nursery to make them feel better and then organise this for the next day. Children beam as they exclaim, 'I'm telling mummy I'm coming to nursery tomorrow!'
• Leaders make effective use of additional funding. Leaders understand the needs of every child well and use funding to target specific needs, including speech and language development. This helps children to make rapid progress in identified areas, including regulating their behaviour.
• The manager is constantly evaluative of the nursery. She utilises the expertise of her team, colleagues from other nurseries and parent feedback to identify and address any areas for improvement. This ensures that, through focused, effective professional development, children are supported to the highest level.