Muddy Boots Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter this friendly nursery happily. Staff are very caring and provide a calm, reassuring approach for children. They focus on nurturing children's well-being and encourage them to share and play cooperatively. Children gain confidence and build secure relationships with staff and their friends. Children benefit from the praise staff give them. They gain a clear sense of self-worth and feel valued and welcomed in the nursery.

Staff have clear expectations and aim to support all children to achieve through their play. They provide a broad curriculum that promotes children's learning and helps them make good progress. Children enjoy being creative and explore colour and texture with interest. For example, they like playing in the outdoor mud kitchen and become absorbed mixing mud, water and leaves. They tell staff they are making a strawberry birthday cake. They begin to use numbers for a purpose as they say, 'The cake needs 10 minutes to cook.'

Children develop good hand-eye coordination skills, such as when they carefully place colourful, magnetic construction pieces together. They show great pride as staff praise them for making such a tall tower. Children enjoy going on local walks with staff, such as to a local nature reserve, the nearby botanical gardens or the beach. Babies enjoy their circle times and singing songs. They recognise a favourite song and begin to follow the actions as they lie down and pretend to be asleep. They giggle in anticipation and when staff say, 'Wake up bunnies' they jump up quickly, showing great excitement.

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

• Leaders and staff are dedicated to providing a high-quality provision for children. They focus on providing children with experiences to help them succeed in all areas of their learning. Leaders support staff very well to develop their knowledge and skills. For example, staff have raised their awareness of ways to encourage children's communication and build on their language skills.
• Parents speak very highly about staff and the setting. Staff work closely with parents to provide a smooth settling-in process for each child. They value parents input to promote a consistent approach for their children's care and learning.
• Staff observe children's play and identify where each child needs to progress next. They plan activities that, overall, help children achieve well in their play. However, at times, staff do not give full consideration to adapting activities or adding further resources to provide sufficient challenges that help sustain all children's interests consistently well.
• All children develop an enjoyment of books. Babies become absorbed looking at an interactive 'touchy-feely' book. Older children enjoy hearing a story about emotions. They begin to sound out initial letters of their names and familiar words. They smile and tell staff, 'P is for penguin'.
• Children enjoy finding out about their community and other ways of living. For example, they talk with staff about their homes and families. They like to go for walks with staff to the train station. They have great fun on an outing to a local farm, where they see some chickens and enjoy cuddling the guinea pigs and helping to feed the goats.
• Staff support children's communication and language very well. They help babies develop good listening and attention skills. Babies smile and move their bodies when staff sing familiar songs, such as 'Five little ducks go swimming one day'. Older children begin to form longer sentences to express their ideas. They look at pictures of sea creatures and tell staff, 'This is a swordfish' or 'Sharks live under the water.'
• Staff encourage children's awareness of keeping fit and healthy. For example, children enjoy going to the shops with staff to buy healthy toppings for the pizzas they make. They enjoy daily exercise, such as yoga, and like to see how fast they can ride bikes along a path. Staff talk with children about being careful on their outings to the beach. However, they do not extend children's understanding about keeping themselves and others safe consistently well. For example, to help them manage their speed and control more carefully when riding on bikes and push along toys outdoors.
• Children behave very well. Staff use positive reinforcement effectively with children and encourage them to discuss their feelings. Older children show concern when they see a younger friend is tired and upset and sing them a song to help them feel happy.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen teaching to provide appropriate challenges in activities for all children, and sustain their interest and learning consistently well
• develop further ways to encourage children's understanding of keeping themselves and others safe, such as within their outdoor play.