Nursery on the Green Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff warmly welcome children into this inspiring, family orientated nursery. They know children extremely well and adapt their interactions and routines to ensure that they consistently meet the needs of each individual child. This helps children to settle quickly. Staff provide activities to encourage children's natural curiosity and enthuse them to learn. Children are eager and confident to take part in the innovative, exciting activities. From the moment that children enter the premises, they are enthralled by the 'magical', awe-inspiring surroundings that captivate their interest and challenge their learning. For example, children add tea bags to water and describe the fragrance of the different-flavoured teas they make during a sensory activity. All children make rapid progress from their individual starting points.

Children's behaviour is exemplary. They show kindness and consideration for each other, which results in high levels of well-being. Staff show the utmost respect to children and each other. They seek permission from babies before wiping their noses and allow young children to make their own play choices. Children are impressively self-sufficient and develop a 'can-do' attitude from an early age. Babies feed themselves, and older children independently wash their own hands before snack time.

Staff empower children to carry out small tasks, which help to prepare children to start school with confidence. For instance, older children follow recipes from a special cook book that is sent home to all the families. Children measure out the ingredients, carefully add ingredients with spoons, and take turns to stir the mixture. They work collaboratively with their friends to make blueberry and oat muffins, with very little adult support.

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

• The highly experienced leaders share their highly ambitious curriculum with all staff. The management team is visible in the nursery, which enables them to know what is happening. They constantly reflect on and check children's progress. Staff provide an inspiring, sequenced curriculum and build on what they know children can do and what they need to learn next. Children are wonderfully engaged in and focused on learning.
• Staff have a deep understanding of how young children develop, and they plan fun activities to support children's future learning. For example, staff sing songs with babies and use puppets to increase their concentration and enjoyment. They add coloured scarves and play peekaboo games, which delight babies. Babies squeal with laughter and show that they have very strong bonds with staff and are eager to learn.
• Children are immersed in a language-rich environment. Staff expertly build children's speech and language skills through meaningful conversations. Staff show a genuine interest in what children say. Children share experiences from home and recall what they know. Staff provide exciting opportunities to encourage children's speech. For example, children enter a 'crime scene' to decide 'who done it?'. Children talk about the clues they find, engage in lively conversation, and share ideas to solve the crime.
• Staff are extremely passionate about the use of mathematics and they weave this into many activities. Babies learn about proportion as they successfully explore wooden blocks that vary in size. Staff embed concepts to enable children to move to the next stage of learning. For example, older children confidently count up to 50 and work out mathematical problems. Critical thinking is embedded in children's play as they trial and test out how many crates they will need to place a wooden board on so they can successfully roll their ball down the slope.
• The outside area provides a high-quality, rich environment for children to explore and learn in. The staff encourage children to strengthen their fine and large muscles. For instance, children master using real hammers. They demonstrate an excellent understanding of how to keep themselves safe as they wear goggles and carefully crush coloured chalk to make powder paint. Staff know that this helps children to develop the ability to progress to making finer movements and eventually make marks and start to learn early writing.
• The nursery is extremely inclusive. Staff's passion and determination for providing inclusive, high-quality education and involving all families is very evident in the numerous opportunities they provide. Parents feel supported and extremely well informed about their children's learning, and know how to support this at home. For example, the introduction of parent workshops, detailed child reviews, inviting parents for tea, and sending a cookbook home for families to share their home recipes, are highly successful strategies to support children and their families to feel welcome and valued. Parents comment that their children are thriving and are eager to come to nursery.
• The manager has high regard for staff. Staff receive regular and relevant supervision, and extensive opportunities to attend training to further their skills. Staff's knowledge is consistently built over time, which translates to the high-quality teaching for the children. Staff report high levels of support for their well-being.