Moksliukas

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and ready to start their day. They are greeted by familiar, caring staff. They settle quickly and make choices about what they would like to play with. Children form warm, secure and trusting relationships. They are confident and thoroughly enjoy their time together with the adults and their friends. Children are curious and excited to explore the resources, and they show good levels of engagement. For example, when playing with water, they add sand and create their own beach. Children use syringes and skilfully suck up the water to release into beakers. Babies play with musical instruments. They bang the drums and shake the shakers with excitement. Staff sing familiar songs and nursery rhymes with them, using both English, Lithuanian and Russian.

Children are learning to manage their own risks. They climb on the climbing frame, balancing on each rung. They negotiate with their friends where to put their feet next. When they master the climb, they sit at the top celebrating their success. Children follow good hygiene procedures and are learning to be independent. They help themselves to water, wash their hands after they have played outside and before meals. They are excited and enthusiastic to be picked as the helper at lunchtime.

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

• The manager and staff are committed to providing the best possible care and education for children. They plan a broad curriculum that supports children effectively to make good progress from their starting points and develop the skills they need for future learning.
• Staff use positive praise to build children's self-esteem. They encourage quieter children to join in group activities and promote turn taking. However, staff do not consistently address some negative elements of behaviour or help children understand the impact of their behaviour.
• Staff promote children's independence, health and well-being. They support children during toilet training. Children help themselves to healthy snacks and drinks. Children dress and undress themselves, change their shoes and serve their own lunch.
• Leaders and staff offer an inclusive environment. They know where each child is from and celebrate their diversity. For example, staff state where each child is from and then find the flag that represents their country. Children's well-being is promoted.
• There is a robust key-person system in place. Children settle very quickly and build secure relationships with staff. They plan for the children's next steps of learning and provide interesting and engaging learning opportunities. However, on occasion, staff do not fully understand the learning intent, which results in some parts of the learning intention not being fully promoted.
• Staff support children's communication and language skills well. They communicate in children's home language and repeat the sentences back in English. Children develop their language skills quickly and are confident bilingual communicators.
• Parents appreciate the care and time taken by staff to provide feedback using a range of methods, both verbally and online. Parents state that they are pleased with the progress their child has made, particularly how well they are developing their language and communication skills.
• Staff provide engaging opportunities for children to practise their mark making and develop early writing skills. Children comfortably access a range of mark-making tools in many ways. For example, they draw with chalks, freely create pictures, and use play dough and tools to develop their hand muscles.
• The manager is a good role model. Staff receive regular supervision and have access to regular training. Staff comment that they feel well supported and that the leadership team is open and approachable.
• Staff have a good understanding of how to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They sensitively discuss children's needs with parents and offer strategies and support. Staff provide targeted support to enable all children to make good progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff, so they they consistently understand the learning intentions of all activities, to enable them to fully extend children's learning opportunities
• develop staff's behaviour management strategies, so that children have a full understanding of right and wrong and of the impact of their behaviour.