Mrs Bonds Village Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happily and settle quickly in this exceptionally welcoming and well-organised nursery. High staff ratios and a fully embedded key-person system ensure that the individual needs of all children, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), are met effectively. Children build strong relationships with staff and each other. This helps them to feel safe and secure in their learning environment. Children's well-being is nurtured and strengthened through highly effective daily routines in which children learn to express their feelings and emotions in positive ways. As a result, children's confidence is enhanced. They behave well and develop highly effective skills in resilience and self-regulation. This especially supports all children, including children who have SEND, to be prepared for their transitions to the next stage of their education.

Leaders and managers have a clear vision of what they want children to learn. Their ambitious and well-sequenced curriculum shows high regard to supporting children's communication and language skills, emotional development and independence. Children show high levels of acceptance and understanding of each other's needs. They are caring towards each other, understand expectations of their behaviour and actively follow the daily routines. For example, children negotiate whose turn it is next, include all of their friends and then line up and wait for their turn to ride the truck down the ramp. They help each other with small tasks, such as putting on their coats, and share toys effectively during play. Consequently, children create a vibrant and productive learning environment.

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

• All staff work exceptionally well together, creating a supportive atmosphere. The daily activities run seamlessly due to staff's meticulous planning and vigilance, which enables all children to be fully immersed in purposeful learning and development. The ambitious curriculum fully reflects children's individual learning needs and interests. When children reach a specific individual achievement, they celebrate by ringing the bell and adding a star to their wall. Children show great pride when they complete this well-established tradition.
• Staff seize every opportunity to engage children in meaningful conversations. They use their knowledge from recent training to fully engage with all children, model play and extend children's language skills. For example, drawing activities include props about houses that provide a focus for children's engagement and drawing. Staff draw and talk to children about homes and families. Consequently, children keenly join in and talk about their home and who they live with while drawing pictures of them.
• Highly effective systems are in place to monitor children's progress in their learning and development. This enables staff to identify any gaps in children's learning and take prompt action to identify and support children who have SEND. Staff work closely with parents, other agencies and professionals, so that all children receive the additional support and early help that they need. Staff incorporate this information into targeted learning programmes that result in children making strong, steady progress. Parents highly praise staff for their support and explain how their children's social and communication skills have significantly improved.
• Children's language and literacy skills are successfully enhanced throughout the day. Staff consistently engage children in meaningful discussions. They encourage children to try new experiences, such as mixing ingredients to create artificial snow and introduce new words, such as 'squirt' and 'squish'. Children become fully engrossed in group story sessions where staff use props while reading the story and encourage children to join in at relevant parts. Children's love of books is securely enhanced during shared reading times. They develop strong literacy skills as each use their own book to follow the story read by staff and keenly join in discussions about the story.
• Leaders and managers fully assess the needs of all children and identify where additional funding can be used to target and improve children's learning experiences further. They track the impact of additional activities with a sports coach, baby ballet and well-being sessions and new resources. They continuously review staff's practice and planning across all areas of learning, which results in children benefiting from consistently high-quality teaching. All children make exceptional progress from their starting points.