Muddy Footprints

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and feel safe in this inclusive and nurturing environment. They build positive relationships with staff and settle quickly when they join the nursery. Children enjoy sharing their experiences with their friends. They giggle with excitement as they blow bubbles in the water together. Children who find it difficult to manage their emotions are supported by the knowledgeable staff to learn strategies to help them. Promoting children's emotional development is at the heart of this calm and caring nursery.

Children are curious about the world around them and benefit from spending a large proportion of the day exploring outside. They watch the branches of trees swaying in the breeze and notice their footprints in the sand. Children can recall the outings they have been on and can describe what they saw in the driver's seat of the train they were travelling on. Children are developing positive attitudes to learning.

Children's independence is given high priority. They confidently explore the environment and extend their own play ideas using the many open-ended resources available. Children enthusiastically set the table for lunch and wash their own hands. They are taught how to use the toilet and recognise when they need to wipe their own noses. Children are learning the skills they need to manage their own personal needs.

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

• Staff have a vast knowledge of how to effectively support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They attend training and seek advice and support from a broad range of specialist professionals. Staff successfully use the strategies that they have learned to ensure that children with SEND are extremely well supported and make optimum progress.
• Leaders are eager to develop staff expertise to the highest level. Staff benefit from engaging in an abundance of professional development opportunities. Their knowledge and skills are developing over time. Staff morale is high and their well-being is supported.
• Children apply their knowledge of early mathematical concepts. For example, children say that their sandwich 'Looks like a semi-circle' and follow the visual instructions of a game by recognising the numbers in order. They accurately count their strawberries at lunchtime and say 'It's empty' when they have eaten the last one. Children's mathematical skills are developing well.
• Staff find many ways to support children to develop their strength and coordination within their play. For example, children climb over large tyres to reach the top of the steep bank. They pull and stretch blankets as they create walls for a den. Children carefully push fruit onto a stick using their finger and thumb. Children are active and their physical development is well supported.
• Staff promote children's language and communication skills. Children sing nursery rhymes from memory and ask for their favourite stories to be read to them. Children enjoy learning new vocabulary. They teach their friends what a parasol is and describe how it protects you from the sun. Children are developing a wide vocabulary.
• Staff have built strong partnerships with parents and communicate effectively with them. They offer advice to parents about strategies they can use to support their children's emotional needs at home. Parents appreciate the help that the nursery provides to ensure that their children are happy and secure. They say the staff 'go the extra mile' and that they care about their children 'like a parent would'.
• Overall, staff know children well. They use this knowledge to design a broad curriculum, which offers children learning experiences linked to their interests. However, at times, some children do not fully engage in the activities on offer. On these occasions, staff do not yet consistently adapt their teaching in the moment to ensure that these individual children are consistently building on what they know and can do.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• adapt teaching in the moment, so that all children remain engaged and are consistently building on what they know and can do.