Noah's Ark

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show that they are very happy and secure in this extremely welcoming and nurturing learning environment. Children develop a strong bond with staff who are very caring and attentive to their individual needs. Children benefit from a stimulating range of activities that capture their interests well. Staff have high expectations for children's learning and behaviour and are positive role models. As a result, children behave extremely well and show consistently high levels of emotional well-being.

Babies enjoy participating in painting activities, and staff support them to discuss different colours and how the paint and brush feels. They also develop their imagination when exploring toy food and pretending to cook. Staff provide lots of encouragement as they play and provide commentary to support their understanding and expand their vocabulary. Toddlers enjoy listening to the 'Very Hungry Caterpillar Story' and exploring real fruits. This helps to develop their early literacy skills and mathematical knowledge. They also like exploring a range of natural resources, such as shells, conkers and leaves. This helps to broaden their understanding of the natural world.

Pre-school aged children display excellent engagement as they experiment with fruits to create different juices. Staff skilfully expand their language development as they talk about the fresh zest and fragrant smells of the fruit. Older children also show great curiosity as they make tea with real tea bags in the home corner. Staff support children to discuss their ideas and intentions in a highly effective way.

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

• The nursery is successfully led by an experienced, passionate and dedicated manager. The manager has an ambitious vision for the nursery and regularly reflects of the setting's strengths and areas for ongoing enhancements. Staff express high levels of well-being and discuss that they feel valued and well supported to fulfil their roles and responsibilities.
• Staff know the children extremely well. They place strong emphasis on fostering children's individual development across the seven areas of learning. This helps to provide a secure foundation for their future learning. It is evident that children make good progress in relation to their starting points and are thriving.
• There are very positive settling-in procedures in place. For instance, staff invest a great deal of time to get to know individual children and families when they first join. This helps to build strong levels of trust and helps to provide good levels of consistency between nursery and home.
• Parents' written views are extremely positive. For example, parents consistently express that they highly value the kind and committed staff. They also state that communication is very good and that they feel well involved in their children's learning.
• Staff work in close partnership with other early years professionals to support children's well-being and early education. This is evident when positive collaborative working takes place to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. This helps all children to make good progress in their learning.
• Children develop good understanding of people and communities outside their own lives. For instance, they learn about different backgrounds and cultures through art, music and storytelling. Such activities help to broaden children's understanding of diversity in a fun way.
• Children receive excellent support to lead healthy lifestyles. This is evident when they eat a range of nutritious snacks and meals. They also have frequent opportunities to be active during weekly sports sessions and regular trips to the local park and woods. Furthermore, children learn about the importance of good oral health, for instance through trips to the dentist and when participating in fun and engaging tooth-brushing activities.
• Staff working with pre-school aged children extend and challenge children's language development and new knowledge in a very successful way. However, on occasions, staff working with babies and toddlers do not always make the most of opportunities that arise during play to extend their language skills and learning to the very highest level.
• There is a good culture of support and mentoring in place for staff. However, other professional development opportunities are not fully maximised to help to raise the quality of education to the very highest level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen how staff working with babies and toddlers extend children's language skills and learning to an even higher level
• build on professional development opportunities in order to extend staff member's knowledge and skills, to raise the quality of education to the very highest level.