Mace Montessori Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff build warm and reassuring relationships with children. For example, babies gurgle happily as staff make different facial expressions and toddlers giggle with delight as staff build and knock over towers with them. Children clearly feel safe and secure. This enables them to explore the environment and make choices about their play.

Leaders develop a curriculum that prioritises individual children's needs and interests. Staff know children very well and use this information to set up highly engaging activities. For instance, children work together on a 'beach clean-up', using jumbo tweezers to remove rubbish from a seaside-themed activity tray. Staff encourage discussion around sea creatures, and children respond enthusiastically, demonstrating their keen interest in this topic. Through this child-centred activity, staff actively teach about recycling and explain why straws are now made of paper.

Staff work together to model respectful relationships. They encourage and support younger children to take turns with resources and to be kind to each other. Older children demonstrate the impact of this as they play together successfully, demonstrating patience and excellent turn-taking skills. For example, they patiently wait their turn to participate in an activity and remind each other to take turns when helping themselves to lunch. This contributes to a calm and purposeful atmosphere throughout the day.

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

• Staff interact warmly with children and follow their interests to engage them in conversation. For instance, children draw shells, and this develops into an enthusiastic conversation about snails and slugs. However, staff sometimes make speech errors or use words such as 'fishies' and 'duckies'. This does not support the development of correct spoken English. There are also occasions when staff need to give children longer to respond to their questions or to share their own thoughts and ideas. However, over time, children become confident communicators in readiness for school.
• Staff have a good understanding of how young children learn and how their skills progress over time. For example, they design activities that motivate children to use tools that develop their fine motor control. Children show high levels of engagement and perseverance as they use pipettes to transfer water between containers to 'save' the plastic fish. This helps to build the muscles in children's hands in preparation for successful early writing skills.
• Staff support children to build their independence skills. Younger children learn to wipe their own noses at 'snuffle stations'. Older children self-serve their lunch and pour themselves water. However, staff are sometimes too busy with routine tasks themselves, at the expense of engaging with children. This leads to occasions when children are not listened to or are not engaged in learning.
• Staff work hard to build children's self-esteem. For example, children are happy to see their creative work displayed quickly on the wall. Staff give children frequent praise, but this is usually a 'well done' or 'good job', with no further information about what children have done well. However, children generally show a good understanding of the rules and expectations for their behaviour and are quick to follow these.
• Leaders are passionate about inclusion and proud of the support they offer for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They are quick to engage the support of other professionals to ensure that children get access to the right support as early as possible. Staff work closely with parents to offer reassurance and guidance. They are committed to making reasonable adjustments to make sure that all children can be included in the nursery. This approach supports all children to make good progress from their individual starting points in development.
• Staff build positive relationships with parents, offering a range of events to invite them into the nursery and involve them in their children's learning. For example, they are holding a Halloween event where parents can carve pumpkins with their children. Parents comment that they are very happy with the nursery. They praise the strong communication, the high levels of care that their children receive and the variety of engaging and creative activities on offer.
• Leaders prioritise the well-being of their team, offering staff regular opportunities to discuss how they are feeling at work. Staff get access to a wealth of training and support to continually improve their practice. Staff comment that they are happy at this nursery and feel part of a supportive and understanding team.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to model spoken English correctly and give children enough time to respond to questions or to share their own thoughts and ideas
• ensure that routine tasks do not have an impact on engagement with children
• encourage staff to be more specific in their praise so children understand what they have done well.