Oakwood House & Forest School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children clearly enjoy their time in the setting. The indoor and outdoor learning environments are stimulating and provide good opportunities for children to make safe and independent choices. They eagerly complete their own risk assessments of the forest school areas, making sure that the space is safe for their friends to use, and discuss the rules for keeping safe around the fire pit. Children behave well as they explore outdoors. They show great enthusiasm and positive attitudes towards their learning.

The dedicated manager is enthusiastic, has high expectations for every child and has developed a curriculum based on children's interests and what they need to learn next. Staff consider children's interests and next steps. A varied range of experiences build on what children know and can do, especially in building their communication and language skills in preparation for their move to school. Staff highly value contributions from parents. They use information about children's achievements at home to complement their learning and help them to consolidate new skills. Parents are complimentary about the staff team and the care and learning they provide. They are particularly grateful for the advice, support and guidance that staff have afforded them during COVID-19 (coronavirus).

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

• Staff complete regular observations of children. They use these to promptly identify any gaps in children's learning and seek early professional help, when needed. Staff have been proactive in identifying the impact on children's learning and development of prolonged absences due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, they have a consistent approach to supporting children's learning, and children are catching up quickly.
• Children form close bonds with caring key staff and are confident to leave their parents and carers as they arrive. They freely explore all areas of the nursery and forest school. Overall, children behave well and follow the daily routines. However, on occasions, staff do not set consistent boundaries in order to help children to manage their behaviour as they move between different activities and spaces in the setting.
• Children grow their own herbs and flowers and use these in their dough play. Staff encourage children to use their senses and available tools to chop and mix. They create their own magical concoctions and potions. Additionally, they teach children new words to enhance their growing vocabulary, such as 'combine' and 'dice'.
• The managers use the early years pupil premium funding effectively to broaden the experiences available to children. For instance, they have developed 'den building areas' to support children's growing imagination. In addition, this widens the experiences on offer outside for those children who prefer to learn outdoors.
• The recently appointed manager is ambitious and passionate about the service she provides. She provides ongoing training for staff and meets with room leads to plan and discuss children's needs. However, there is scope for further improvement in helping the staff to gain an even better understanding of how to support children.
• Staff encourage children to be independent in their self-help skills and, as a result, children are learning how to take care of themselves. For example, they find their own belongings and return plates and dishes after eating. Staff support children to be healthy and make good choices about their diet. They encourage children to eat their vegetables and discuss what food is good for them.
• Staff provide children with lots of opportunities to explore mathematical concepts. For example, in the forest school, children roll balls down guttering of varying heights. They then investigate what would happen if the height of guttering changed.
• Children have many opportunities to listen to stories and rhymes. Younger children independently choose books and take them to staff, who read to them. Staff recognise when babies become restless and they sing songs to calm them. Children stop what they are doing and join in with the words and actions.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to develop successful behaviour management strategies, to further promote children's positive behaviour as they move between different activities
• sharpen the focus on monitoring staff practice to allow more frequent opportunities for staff to discuss their practice and set targets to help raise the quality of teaching and children's outcomes even higher.