Muriel Green Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this nurturing and rich learning environment. Home visits enable the relationships between children and their key person to begin from the outset. These visits allow staff to get to know children exceptionally well. Staff build on children's emotional security as they welcome them warmly and have toys and activities available that they know children enjoy. This helps all children to feel completely safe and secure. They display exceptionally high levels of well-being and become deeply involved in their play. Children demonstrate immense pride in their achievements. Babies give themselves a clap and older children excitedly proclaim, 'I did it,' when they successfully complete a task.

Leaders and staff plan and implement an inspirational curriculum that is built around the needs of each child. All staff receive specific support that enables them to fully understand and successfully deliver the curriculum intentions to their group of children. Predictable routines are introduced in the baby room and built on throughout the nursery. For example, every child knows to stop and listen when they hear staff say 'stop, look, listen'. Staff consistently model respect to the children and to each other. These expectations are extremely well embedded throughout the nursery. This contributes to children learning how to respect others and displaying exemplary behaviour.

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

• Staff create an environment where all children consistently receive high-quality learning experiences. They provide children with numerous opportunities to extend their knowledge and skills, such as counting, weighing and mark making. This increases children's understanding of mathematics and literacy, and supports their ongoing development. Children make excellent progress as they learn in the moment and prepare for the next stage of their education.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are supported by passionate and experienced staff. Children with SEND have targeted next steps in learning in place, which are developed alongside parents and other specialists, such as physiotherapists. This ensures that all children receive the highest standard of teaching, which is adapted to their level of learning.
• Partnerships with parents are excellent. Parents give the utmost praise for the staff. They feel extremely involved and very well informed about their children's learning. Parents state that children are highly supported to settle and feel secure. They develop strong emotional attachments to their key person. Parents state their children are thriving and are making excellent progress. Staff provide resources for parents to build on their children's learning at home. For example, parents can borrow carefully curated book bags. These are regularly made to help children with particular situations, such as having a new baby in the home.
• Children demonstrate highly positive attitudes to learning. They remain engaged in their activities for long periods. Outdoor learning is given the highest priority. The garden area is a superb learning environment, where children deeply immerse themselves in play and exploration. Staff support this by consistently noticing and acting on moments where they can extend children's learning. This increases children's motivation to learn more about the subject they are interested in. Children confidently ask questions and try hard to work things out for themselves. They use carefully placed books to find out more information or to enjoy stories with an adult.
• Children developing strong communication and language skills is a key focus area for staff. They support children who are developing their early language skills to learn how to use sign language, alongside hearing clear, simple words and sentences. Older children engage in conversation and discussion with adults and each other. Their use of vocabulary, expression and intonation is excellent.
• The management team is extremely strong and dedicated to its role. The team demonstrates a very strong drive to continually enhance the nursery, taking account of the views of staff, parents and children. Staff are supported exceptionally well through a continuous cycle of highly effective supervision and training opportunities. This helps them to continually improve their already very strong practice. Staff state that they feel highly supported by the managers, who care about their well-being and listen to their ideas.