Marmalade Duck

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this rich learning environment. The inspiring and ambitious curriculum is well embedded and effective. Leaders and staff provide a wealth of motivating learning experiences, to ensure that all children build firm foundations for their future learning. This includes weekly 'clubs', which introduce children to cooking, gardening, sports and ballet, providing exceptional opportunities for them to develop their interests and talents. The highly skilled staff guide children with respect and understanding. They support children's curiosity and engagement through carefully planned activities, which foster a keen desire to learn. Children understand staff's high expectations and their behaviour is exemplary. They explain how they follow the setting's 'bee code', which teaches them to be kind, helpful and thoughtful towards others.

Staff are extremely caring and nurturing. They do everything they can to foster children's emotional well-being and ensure that they feel safe and secure. Staff visit children in their own homes before they start at the setting, to build relationships and find out about families' home lives and experiences. This gives staff extensive knowledge of each child, to help provide them with the best start to their education. The individual care and attention for children is second to none. This includes tailored support for parents on matters, such as children's behaviour, communication and toilet training. Children make remarkable progress, which has a positive effect on their learning and on their home lives too.

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

• Leaders and staff constantly strive for excellence throughout all aspects of the provision. They respond swiftly to the differing needs of children and are keen to explore new ideas to promote children's learning and well-being. For instance, staff have identified a need to further support some children's emotional development. Therefore, they have introduced a 'welcome table', which encourages children to identify their emotions as they arrive. This helps staff to recognise where children may benefit from talking through their feelings, to help them to settle or regulate their behaviour.
• There is a real passion to extend children's language skills. Staff think carefully about the words that they want children to know. They provide fun and interesting ways for children to hear and practise using new vocabulary. For example, younger children pretend that coloured scarves are 'buzzy bees', which must fly onto the different body parts called out by staff. They giggle as they try to remember where their shoulders are and are keen to call out their own suggestions.
• Staff instil children with a love of literacy and help them to build excellent foundations for reading and writing. They read and sing with children frequently, introducing them to a rich variety of books, songs and poems. Staff make recordings of children's favourites, which parents can access online. This enables them to share in their children's learning. Children delight in developing their own characters and storylines, using props such as 'story stones'. Staff support them to record their ideas in words and pictures, so that they can be shared with others later.
• Children develop a deep understanding of their own uniqueness. Staff provide a safe and nurturing space for them to explore the similarities and differences of their family structures, languages and cultures. Parents and carers play an active role in helping children to explore events, such as Lunar New Year and Hanukkah, coming into the setting to share food, stories and artefacts. This gives children and staff a real insight into families' traditions and ways of life. Children show a positive appreciation of different communities as they excitedly recall how to say hello in other languages.
• Leaders and staff are committed to providing a sustainable and 'ecologically friendly' setting. They teach children to be conscious about looking after their local area and the wider world. Learning opportunities are motivating and interesting, such as learning about recycling by visiting a local charity shop. Children show that they are passionate about taking care of the planet and the wildlife they share it with, as they create 'bug houses' and bird feeders for their garden.
• Partnerships with parents are exceptional. Parents unanimously praise the setting. They appreciate that staff do everything possible to ensure their children are happy and safe. Parents comment on the excellent communication and say that they feel completely involved in their children's 'educational journey'. They recognise that this united approach helps children to make the best possible progress.