N Family Club Redhill

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children and their families receive warm and friendly welcomes as they arrive. Children settle quickly and gravitate to a range of carefully planned play experiences and activities. The environment is well considered and provides children of all ages with accessibility to a wide range of resources. This helps children make their own choices and leads to positive motivation and engagement in their play. Staff enrich children's explorations by carefully entwining their individual curiosities into their daily activities. They provide praise and encouragement as children persist at things that challenge them until they achieve. This supports children to build a positive sense of self-esteem and resilience as they learn new skills.

Staff recognise the importance of supporting children's behaviour and are positive role models. Consequently, children's behaviour is good. For instance, children take turns and confidently seek out friends to share experiences with. Children who can sometimes find it difficult to understand their own emotions are well supported by attentive staff, who apply a consistent approach to support children's growing understanding of behavioural expectations. Additionally, children are well supported to learn how to keep themselves safe and healthy. For example, staff encourage older children to think about why they have been asked not to do something, such as running indoors. Children quickly recall the rules and explain that they might trip and hurt themselves. Staff positively reinforce this, strengthening children's skills to recognise how to keep themselves safe.

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

• Leaders and staff work hard to plan and deliver a well-thought-out, ambitious curriculum. This includes meaningful experiences across all areas of the early years foundation stage. Staff know what skills children have learned, what they want to teach them next and why. They have high but appropriate expectations of what they want children to learn and provide appropriately challenging experiences. Staff understand the importance of continually building on the skills children have already learned. This prepares children for future success.
• Overall, interactions between staff and children are strong. For example, staff understand the importance of developing children's communication and language skills. Staff consistently use Makaton and gesture alongside spoken words. Children have opportunities to hear and learn an abundance of new words, such as 'saffron' and 'ingredients'. However, sometimes, not all staff identify and build on children's immediate interests and curiosity during play. This means, at times, not all staff extend children's thinking as fully as possible. This does not consistently encourage children's curiosity in their experiences to fully extend their learning.
• Children of all ages delight in accessing the well-equipped outdoor space. The youngest children safely explore their whole-body movements as they learn early physical skills. Older children confidently run, negotiate space and learn to balance. In addition, children regularly take part in yoga sessions that support their mindfulness and strengthen their gross motor skills. These opportunities promote children's core muscle development in preparation for early writing skills.
• Leaders ensure regular staff supervision arrangements are in place. These are effective at ensuring staff's ongoing suitability as well as providing ongoing training opportunities. However, some rooms do not currently have room leaders to offer the ongoing support, direction and guidance staff require. At times, this has an impact on the experiences some children receive.
• Staff are respectful of children and develop warm and trusting relationships with them. This supports children's emotional well-being, as they are confident to seek out staff for comfort and support. Children delight in inviting staff into their play. For instance, children invite staff to collect more ingredients to help them create their own 'curry soup'. Children develop high levels of confidence.
• Staff begin to teach children to care about the environment. For example, children recall that turning the lights off when they are not needed saves energy. They comment that this is good for the planet. Children benefit from rich experiences that help to broaden their horizons.
• There is a strong emphasis on parental partnership at this nursery. As a result, parents are highly complimentary about the care and learning their children receive. They report that staff work in collaboration with them to achieve consistency between home and nursery. Staff offer bespoke advice to parents in support of life events and developmental milestones. Leaders ensure effective processes are in place to keep parents well informed about their child's day and their learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support all staff to consistently recognise opportunities that arise from children's interests and extend children's thinking skills further to enhance their learning
• strengthen the availability of leaders in rooms consistently across the setting to provide staff with the guidance and direction needed to continually enhance experiences for children.