Maldon Court Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The youngest children thrive at this extremely warm and welcoming nursery. Staff make their time in the nursery fun and nurturing. They are consistently kind and loving towards children and ensure that their needs are met. Children are happy and relaxed. They form very close bonds with staff and seek them out willingly for cuddles and interactions in activities. Children show a very strong familiarity with the routines of the day and demonstrate exceptional concentration and perseverance skills for their age. They are fully included in daily activities, such as circle time with the older children, and beam with pride when they are chosen to carry out a small task.

Children show pure delight in activities. They squeal and giggle as they help to lift a parachute high into the air and excitedly jump underneath as the parachute falls to the ground. Young children are encouraged by enthusiastic and motivating staff to develop a have a go attitude and to develop their problem-solving skills. They begin to explore resources, such as large tweezers, and use them to attempt to pick up conkers, learning from the older children around them and the consistent praise and encouragement from staff.

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

• Highly passionate leaders and staff teach a curriculum that is ambitious and successfully builds on what children know and can do. There is clear intent and high expectations of what staff want young children to achieve before they transition to the next room and stage of their education. Staff demonstrate a deep knowledge and understanding of their key children's personalities and learning styles and tailor activities to complement these and that motivate them to learn.
• Children's well-being is given high priority within the nursery. They can express their emotions in a range of age-appropriate ways, such as using a teddy bear to show how they feel, and are comfortable to do so. Children are confident to make choices in their play and their voices or gestures are heard and valued. They respond very well to the positive interactions from staff and give themselves a pat on the shoulder for their achievements.
• Parents are overwhelmingly complimentary about the nursery and staff that care for their children. Communication is excellent and they are consistently informed about the learning and care their children receive. Staff highly value parents input about their children's achievements at home and use this to help plan activities. Parents enjoy taking part in activities with their children and suggested by the nursery, such as an autumn hunt in local areas.
• The staff at this nursery work exceptionally well together and make a very strong staff team with shared values and ethos. Staff are highly valued by leaders and are consistently encouraged to share their thoughts, ideas, and opinions. Staff say that they love working in the nursery and feel very well supported. Staff engage in meaningful professional development opportunities that enable them to fulfil their roles to a high standard and consistently improve children's experiences.
• The encouragement of children's language development is constantly fostered by highly skilled staff. They use every opportunity to provide children with opportunities to practise their use of language and development of words. At snack time, a visual word mat is used to initiate simple conversations and introduce new words. During activities, staff provide a simple, but clear narrative and use lots of repetitive words to consolidate children's speech and understanding. Recently, simple sign language has been introduced as a further way of supporting young children to communicate. Children have opportunities every day to sing songs and read books, choosing their favourite ones to have read to them.
• Staff encourage children to be independent from an early age. Young children confidently wash their hands and fetch their name card and water bottle for snack. Older children help to role model positive behaviour to the youngest and they all help to tidy away resources when asked. Children are quickly learning how to share and take turns as this skill is consistently promoted and praised by staff.