Monique Montessori Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this highly nurturing and welcoming nursery. They form extremely close relationships with the passionate and inspiring staff who take the time to get to know each child exceptionally well. Children use their finely honed social skills, developed with the support of staff, to share, negotiate and take turns. For example, they very maturely negotiate who holds a book during story time. The excellent range of well-planned activities keep children thoroughly engaged throughout the day. The environment is rich in language, and staff skilfully seize all opportunities to build on children's interests to adapt learning. For example, a child bringing in a soft toy dolphin started an under-the-sea creature project, which maintained children's interest for days.

Children fully understand what is expected of them. They are highly confident with the routines, and children decide which activities they want to take part in during the day. This culminates in a lovely, warm, homely and calm environment where children support each other extremely well and form very good friendships. For example, older children cut up fruit for younger peers and support them to share fairly.

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

• Staff provide children with plenty of time to do things for themselves from a very early age. This fosters a 'can-do' mentality in the children, giving them the confidence to try new things and persevere even when things are difficult. For example, they try to work out how to loosen a screw which has just been tightened. All children become highly motivated and independent learners.
• Leadership is extremely strong. Leaders pay careful attention to staff development, well-being and workloads. Staff feel supported, heard and valued. Testament to this is the very high level of staff retention. Even in their selection process of new employees, leaders focus on finding staff who are passionate about children and want to build a career in the industry.
• Leaders and staff have designed and implemented a carefully sequenced and highly successful curriculum. The curriculum aims to prepare children for the next stage of their education. Even very young children happily sit for impressive periods of time listening to each other's experiences and stories. This is the result of the wonderful atmosphere created by the staff and the superb curriculum. Children's behaviour is exemplary. This is achieved through strong and consistent role-modelling by staff.
• Precise planning tailored to children's needs and expert staff practice are two of the cornerstones of the tremendous success of this provision. Staff promptly identify and support children who need extra help. They work closely with other professionals, colleagues and parents to provide that help, and they regularly review and adjust activities to suit the children attending. This ensures that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are included, and it provides opportunities for the most able learners to excel.
• Communication and language are at the heart of staff's practice. They continuously model good language and extend children's vocabulary and knowledge, building on what children already know. This is evident as very young non-verbal children learn to understand and follow instructions. The older children engage in complex conversations and rationally discuss ideas such as fairness in a knowledgeable and balanced way.
• Staff provide a lot of outdoor learning opportunities, which children relish. In addition to activities such as reading and observing nature, children have opportunities to develop their physical strength and coordination through active play. For example, they test their capabilities as they develop confidence over time to negotiate obstacles.
• Leaders and staff build strong and highly effective relationships with parents and engage them in a dialogue about their children's development, progress and experiences. They support parents very effectively in understanding the aims behind the curriculum. They creatively provide parents with ideas and support for how to continue learning and development at home. Parents speak very highly of the nursery, and they greatly appreciate the book and story bag library available to them.