Media City Nature Kindergarten

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children blossom in this caring and nurturing nursery where their needs always come first. Children arrive happy to start the day as they are greeted by the warm-hearted staff team. All children are well supported to develop their independence. Toddlers serve their own breakfast and babies confidently feed themselves. Pre-school children are skilled at putting on their shoes and coats before they play outside. All children show great confidence as they explore the sizeable inner city oasis of the nursery's outdoor space. Babies become accustomed to the feel of grass and soil. Toddlers dig for insects, carefully capture them in containers and observe them before letting them go. Pre-school children clamber onto tree trunks, demonstrating their balance as they walk end to end before leaping to the ground. Children create their own obstacle courses which challenge their coordination. They keep trying even if they find it difficult. All of this helps to ensure that children's health is very well supported.

Children receive lots of support in regulating their own emotions. They learn different strategies to help them recognise how they are feeling, such as finding materials which soothe them. They make use of areas of the nursery to become calm, with older children being able to then talk to staff about how they feel. Children enjoy being creative. They use their imagination when playing with dough to create meals, saying 'I've made a strawberry pancake'.

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

• The nursery has been through a period of significant change and improvement in the time since the previous inspection. The manager has led this change from the front to ensure the nursery has returned to providing a high quality of care for children. At the core of this change has been the development of a precisely targeted curriculum that best meets the needs of all children. The manager has successfully embedded the nursery's culture of placing the needs of children at the centre of everything the staff team do.
• Staff understand precisely how to progressively develop children's independence and the seed of this starts with the very youngest. Children are highly independent which contributes to smooth transitions between rooms as children progress through the nursery. This focus ultimately supports children to be well prepared for their eventual move to school.
• Children are considerate and conscientious individuals. They mirror the kind behaviours of the staff team. Children take turns and share well. They play with their friends, creating their own imaginative activities. Children concentrate well on the activities provided by staff and are challenged in their learning. For example, children experiment mixing colours, recalling what the outcome will be.
• Staff across the nursery support children's language development well. They regularly read to children and enthusiastically sing familiar songs with them. This ensures that children are exposed to an ever-expanding vocabulary. There are though some instances where staff do not always model their own speech well. This means that children do not always hear words pronounced correctly.
• Staff receive extensive training, coaching, mentoring and feedback to strengthen their practice. Staff working as apprentices are highly valued and receive the support they need in order to balance their studies with their employment. Staff talk about the strong team ethos in the nursery and how supportive the leadership team are.
• Parents, particularly those of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), are united in their praise for the nursery and say their children, 'cheer when we arrive at nursery'. They talk passionately about the progress children make, the caring staff team and the 'family feel'. They explain how staff see the unique needs of their children and provide them with all the support they need.
• The manager and staff highly value and celebrate the diversity of their team and that of the children and their families at the nursery. Staff help children feel welcome by communicating with them in their home language. Staff ensure that they gain valuable information about children's unique cultural heritage, which they include in the curriculum taught to children. This helps children develop a true sense of their own identity.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop staff practice so that correct speech is consistently modelled to children.