Maidendale Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are excited as they enter this exceptionally well-resourced, caring and nurturing environment. Children of all ages and abilities show the highest levels of confidence and self-esteem as they immediately settle in. They are eager for their day to begin, which demonstrates how extremely safe and secure they feel in the nursery.

Older children show remarkable levels of problem-solving skills for their very young ages. For example, children are engrossed in scooping sand. They work out for themselves to extend this activity by removing their socks and using them as containers. Children's faces show intense concentration as they think through how to hold the socks with their fingers and fill them with sand at the same time.

Children relish the learning opportunities in the outdoor environment. Babies learn to negotiate inclines and manoeuvre themselves around children and resources. They giggle with pleasure as they realise that hitting water with beakers makes the water splash onto their faces. Older children talk with confidence about how the different plants they are growing need lots of water because of the sunny weather. They discuss together that they need to use smaller watering cans as the plants are very small. This helps to develop children's understanding of caring for the natural world and nurturing living things.

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

• Children across all ages are exceptionally well behaved. Babies look with curiosity at older children playing and wait happily until the resources are passed to them. Older children show consideration and respect for others and the ability to work as a team. For example, when children pretend to be pirates, they make sure that all children have resources before they begin to play.
• Staff know when they talk to children to get down to children's level, speak slowly and clearly and give children time to answer. Staff introduce new words into children's vocabulary as they play. For example, as children thread flowers into a frame, staff describe how children are 'making patterns' and 'sequencing colours'.
• Staff are creative in the ways in which they develop children's early mark-making skills. They encourage children to draw circles on boards on the wall using brushes and water. Children have space to develop their large movements as they stretch to paint on large rolls of paper.
• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is a key feature of the nursery. The manager and staff are proactive in engaging with a wide range of other professionals. This enables children and families to get the specialist support they need. Staff use additional funding very well to support vulnerable children.
• Staff teach children to keep themselves healthy. Older children know to wash their hands before eating and after using the toilet. They talk about 'washing the germs away'. Staff support younger children to put soap and water on their hands and encourage children to look at their hands to see if they are clean.
• Staff encourage children's independence skills exceptionally well. For example, some children choose oranges for snack. Staff explain to children that pushing their thumbs into the peel of oranges helps to remove the skin. As children complete this process for themselves, they relish the very genuine praise that staff give them for their achievements.
• The manager and staff work together as an integrated team, where everyone is supportive of each other. Strong teamwork and a desire for children to achieve are at the centre of everything staff do. This is reflected in the range of imaginative activities that children receive and the progress they make in their development.
• Staff plan a wide variety of very well-resourced activities. They talk confidently about the learning that children receive from the activities provided. Some staff bring numbers and counting into children's play. For example, they encourage children to count the pebbles they use and how many scoops of sand they put in a bucket. However, this is not consistent for children of all ages throughout the nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to be consistent in developing children's mathematical understanding, particularly children's understanding of numbers and counting.