Little Squirrels - Community Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and enjoy their time at the nursery. They arrive full of excitement, and staff warmly welcome them with smiles. Children thrive from close attachments with kind staff and feel valued. Children receive cuddles when they need reassurance or when they look sad. They show a sense of security and belonging due to the strong bonds staff form with them. They are confident to welcome visitors, engage them in conversations and invite them to play.

Children are supported to behave well. They revel in the praise they receive. Staff quickly manage any unwanted behaviour and ask children to think about how other children feel. Children learn about the effects of their actions on others and are beginning to manage their own feelings.

Children are keen to play outside. This promotes their muscle development, and they benefit from the fresh air. They enjoy playing games alongside adults and their friends, such as skittles and throwing beanbags into hoops. Children work together to make up rules and are excited to take part in the activities. They remind each other that 'we need to take turns' and stay engaged and focused during their play.

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

• The manager and staff create an ambitious curriculum based on precise assessments of the children. Staff meet daily to discuss children's learning and care needs. They have a good knowledge of what children need to learn next and how to support them.
• Staff feel supported by the manager. They receive regular feedback and guidance and are helped to develop their teaching skills. This means the quality of teaching is consistently good across the nursery.
• Staff develop children's independence well. They teach simple skills to children, such as putting on their own coats and pouring drinks by themselves. Children show high levels of independence and confidence.
• The manager and staff work hard to provide cultural experiences that disadvantaged children may not encounter outside the nursery. For instance, children benefit from bus journeys to local museums and the local library, where they learn about the wider world.
• Children learn about the importance of healthy lifestyles and good oral hygiene. They enjoy nutritious snacks and learn how to brush their teeth.
• Staff prioritise children's communication and language development. They introduce new words and encourage children to answer questions. However, staff do not always challenge older children to construct their own thoughts and provide longer answers.
• Staff build good relationships with parents and carers. They ask for information about children before they start at the nursery and share daily updates. Parents feel well informed about their child's development and speak highly of the nursery and the staff.
• The nursery focuses on promoting a love of reading. It offers a home library and invites parents to reading sessions. Parents learn how to support their child's reading development at home.
• Overall, the manager and staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) well. They identify gaps in children's learning and development and put interventions in place. They use additional funding effectively to meet the learning and development needs of the children. This helps children with SEND to make good progress. However, on occasion, staff miss opportunities to progress the speech of children who speak English as an additional language, which means their progress is not as rapid as it could be.
• Adults and children show respect for each other. Children play together nicely. They react positively to their peers. For example, a child says, 'That's okay, accidents happen,' when another child breaks part of a house they have built, and they work together to rebuild it.
• Staff support children's mathematical development effectively. They count regularly with children and introduce numbers to daily routines. Children display good levels of number recognition and early mathematics skills. Older children work out how many more skittles they have to knock over and count them to check their answers. Younger children match numbers to amounts to complete puzzles, and they recognise numbers up to 10.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide consistent support for children who speak English as an additional language so they have more opportunities to practise their developing speech and language skills
• make better use of questions so that older children are encouraged to think and give more detailed responses, to further develop their communication skills.