Noah's Ark Nursery Group

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children eagerly enter this inclusive setting, which has a warm and friendly, home-from-home atmosphere. Children are happy and enjoy greeting their friends when they arrive. Staff champion children's unique personalities, complimenting them as they arrive dressed as their favourite book character. Because staff show a genuine interest in their individuality, this contributes to children's feeling of safety and belonging. Additionally, it fosters a positive environment that plays a significant role in shaping children's self-esteem and identity.

The indoor and outdoor environments are extremely inviting and stimulating. Staff ensure activities and resources are age-appropriate and support all areas of learning. Consequently, all children make rapid progress from their starting points. Children are extremely well behaved. Children learn to accept the needs of others when staff introduce turn-taking games and praise their acts of kindness towards others.

Staff plan real-life experiences, giving children the opportunity to learn from, and be part of, their local community. Children talk excitedly to each other when getting ready to go on a picnic and nature walk. Staff teach children effectively to keep themselves safe and successfully risk assess different environments. For example, children remind their peers to wear their high-visibility jacket and hold hands, to keep them safe on their trip.

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

• Overall, teaching is very good. Leaders are extremely reflective and dedicated. They ensure that staff receive training and support, ensuring the curriculum intent and teaching vision are securely embedded throughout the setting. Parents say their children enjoy attending and they praise the communication of the caring and dedicated staff. They proudly express the progress their children are making, especially in their confidence and speech and language development.
• The staff put children at the heart of everything they do. The well-established key-person system and the bespoke settling-in process help children make strong and secure attachments with the caring and attentive staff. When individual children have difficulties settling in, staff work together with parents to provide appropriate support. Sometimes, when children struggle to settle in, staff do not always consider individual strategies to help children easily separate from their parents.
• Robust and regular assessments ensure staff are knowledgeable about children's progress. This helps them to provide sequenced learning, building on what children already know and can do. Guided by children's lead, staff ask meaningful questions and provide one-to-one interactions to extend their learning and development. For example, staff encourage children to hold the pencil closer to the tip when making marks. This immediately improves their pencil control, which helps support early writing skills in preparation for school readiness.
• Staff promote healthy and active lifestyles with continual access to outdoor play opportunities. Children are highly motivated to join in with daily music time, which helps develop their physical skills while enabling them to practise self-expression. Children begin to understand the world they live in through experiences such as growing their own crops and learning about life cycles.
• Leaders instigate effective partnership working with local schools and other professionals, such as speech and language therapists. This helps secure timely and relevant support for children now, and when they transition to school. As a result, all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make significant progress and continuously have their individual needs met. Staff introduce new vocabulary and extend children's ideas through play, stories and role play interactions. Additionally, children learn Makaton sign language to help them to communicate.
• Generally, children are encouraged to become independent in their self-care. Children develop good hygiene habits and independently wash their hands before eating. On occasion, younger children do not consistently receive enough support from staff to ensure they clearly understand the importance of hygiene routines and following them through to the end.
• Children thrive with the responsibility of being 'helper of the day'. They develop self-esteem when staff give them meaningful praise for correctly counting pieces of apple they cut for snack. These consistent, daily routines and meaningful praise from staff mean children know what is expected of them and repeat these positive behaviours.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the already good settling-in processes to further enhance children's emotional security when separating from parents
• help staff to support younger children to manage their self-care needs independently, ensuring hygiene routines tasks are carried out effectively.