Nursery @ Whitefield

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are safe and happy at this homely nursery. Staff strive to make all children feel relaxed. This helps children form secure attachments with the attentive staff. Children enjoy talking to the staff and their peers. They learn to take turns in conversation and use good manners. All children behave well and follow routines in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Many parents say their children grow in confidence as a result of attending this nursery. Children enjoy exploring a range of activities. For example, they make scented dough to create ice creams. Later, staff show them how to use the dough to complete hand actions with music. Children watch carefully and follow the instructions. This helps them develop their small muscles in preparation for school.

Staff encourage a love of stories by regularly reading books with children. The environment is set up with relevant books in all areas of the nursery. Children know that books can help them find new information. For example, they ask to look at a dinosaur book to identify a toy dinosaur hidden in the garden. Staff take children to the school library each week and the Reception class teacher visits to read stories to them. This helps children to feel a sense of belonging to the larger school community and supports their growing confidence.

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

• Children know the learning environment well and use it with purpose to play and learn. For example, they paint sunflowers and count the petals as they do. When staff notice children are not accessing a particular area, they move it around and add items of interest. This helps to ignite children's curiosity and to learn and progress in all areas of the early years curriculum.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are well supported. Staff work with them in small groups, focusing on their targets. For example, they play games to practise speech sounds. This helps to ensure all children make good progress from their individual starting points.
• Staff monitor children's progress. The manager uses this information to identify gaps in learning. The team comes together to plan specific activities to target missing skills. For example, staff provide vegetables and teach children how to cut with a knife. This helps to prepare children for their next stage of learning at school. The manager supports staff to identify learning intentions for children. However, this is in its infancy and staff are still embedding this into their practice.
• Children learn about similarities and differences. Staff value the pictures parents send in. They use these and the nursery bear's diary to talk to the children about their peers' home life and religious celebrations. This helps to prepare children for the wider world around them.
• Staff value children's voice. They invite them to talk about what they like at nursery and to make requests for activities. Some children want to sing about the sun, others want to write a letter to a book character. Staff teach children new songs and help them write and post letters. This promotes children's positive self-esteem.
• Staff model a range of vocabulary with the children. For example, they describe finding worms in a tray set up with seeds, sand and soil. However, correct mathematical vocabulary for measure is not used consistently in activities. This does not help children to be accurate when comparing length or height.
• Leaders spend funding for children promptly and focus on their individual needs. For instance, they support children to access breakfast club to help with transition from home to nursery. This helps to ensure children, particularly the most disadvantaged, do not fall behind their peers in various areas of their development.
• Staff help parents understand their children's learning and development. They use social media and private apps to communicate about what children are learning through play. Staff give suggestions about activities parents could do at home with their children. This helps parents to build on what their children already know and can do.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• use accurate mathematical vocabulary consistently to help children learn the language of measure
• continue to build on staff's ability to identify and share the intended learning for activities that they lead.