North Star Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this warm and welcoming nursery. They build strong relationships with their key persons. Staff offer all children lots of praise and reassurance. This helps them to feel safe and secure to freely explore the environment around them. For example, the babies explore the garden. They move away from staff and discover a water tray. They make sounds and point to the tray to gain the staff's attention and to engage them in their play. The older children help choose the pre-school rules and boundaries. This supports the children to feel empowered to uphold these rules. For example, older children remind each other of the rule to not touch the flowers on the table or they might die. They tell staff when these rules are not being followed.

Children benefit from the large outside garden, which gives them space to be physically active. Younger children climb up small play slides and crawl through tunnels. They roll balls back and forth to each other. Older children run between the trees. They race around on 'stomper stilts' and create obstacle courses. The children extend their play by seeing if they can make it more challenging, while discussing the risks. For example, the children discuss racing on stilts. They discuss how it might be dangerous to run on the playground. They decide to race, walking down the hill on grass as, 'it will be safer'.

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

• The curriculum is a blend of child-led and adult-initiated activities that aim to cover all seven areas of learning. Staff use their knowledge of child development to plan activities based on the children's interests and next steps. They use open-ended questions to find out what children already know and extend that knowledge through meaningful interactions. For example, during an activity, staff asked the children what colours they could see. The children struggle to identify one of the colours. Staff extend children's knowledge by telling them the colour was 'white'. Later, while picking paint, the children identified the white paint.
• Parents are very happy with the care the nursery provides. They report that their children love attending the setting and make good progress. Staff communicate well with parents. They get regular updates on their child's development and next steps, along with activities to support learning at home. Staff offer parents lots of guidance and information on key issues, such as potty training, dummies and irregular sleep patterns. During the pandemic, parents received regular updates on guidance and policy changes. The staff kept in contact with the families, which supported the children when it became time to settle back into the nursery.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well.
• Staff work consistently with families and other agencies to ensure that support is put in place. They ensure all staff have an awareness of the support plans in place to ensure children make good progress. The manager ensures the relevant funding is claimed and that staff receive specialist training to fully support the individual needs of the children in their care.
• Staff praise the management team and feel fully supported in their roles. The manager supports staff effectively through regular supervision meetings and observations of their practice. Staff have access to online training and are encouraged to reflect on their practice, which enhances their knowledge and supports children's learning.
• Children enjoy a range of creative and sensory activities. For example, they mix powder to paint with water and notice the change in the consistency and colour. They place their hands in the paint, giggling as they make marks on the paper. However, at times, staff do not give children the opportunity to represent their own artistic ideas and creativity. For example, during a planned creative activity, staff draw the outline of a fire engine for the children.
• Staff promote children's independence. They prompt young children to use their cutlery and encourage them to pour their own water. Older children love to help clean and set the tables for lunchtime. However, staff do not adequately plan mealtimes. This means children are made to wait for long periods of time, which causes them to become restless and disruptive.
• Children's health and well-being is promoted. The staff offer children plenty of opportunities for children to run around and be active. Children receive healthy meals and snacks. During mealtimes, they discuss the difference between health and unhealthy foods. For example, during lunch, the children discuss what is healthy and unhealthy, such as 'the crumble is healthy' but the ice cream is not because 'it has sugar in it'.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider reviewing the organisation of mealtimes to ensure children are not waiting for too long
• further extend opportunities for children to express and represent their own ideas and creativity in planned activities.