Offerton Farm Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The ethos of the nursery is for children to have fun while they learn. Staff provide all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, with a range of activities that are planned to meet their individual needs and interests. As a result, children are eager to join in, and they make good progress in their learning and development. Children persevere with tasks until they achieve their goal. Younger children try hard to climb the steps to the slide. Staff offer lots of encouragement, and praise children when they reach the top. Older children concentrate as they use tweezers to find bugs in 'gloop', or to pick up the conkers they found on an earlier autumn walk.

Relationships between staff and children are kind and caring. Children demonstrate that they feel safe and secure as they actively seek out staff for a cuddle or to involve them in their play. Children who are upset are quickly soothed. Children's personal care needs are met sensitively. Staff talk and sing to younger children and babies as they change nappies. This helps to build relationships and makes children feel secure during daily routines. Children behave well. Staff teach children to share, take turns and have 'kind hands and kind feet'. They implement different strategies, such as a visual timetable and a 'block' jar to help children to learn to manage their emotions and begin to regulate their own behaviour.

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

• The management team have worked hard since the previous inspection to make significant changes to improve the quality of the provision. The manager has a clear vision for the future of the nursery. She has liaised with outside professionals and acted on their advice to help improve staff's knowledge of how to implement the curriculum. This has had a positive impact on the quality of care and learning that children receive.
• Staff talk positively about the changes that have been put in place. They say the manager is supportive and they now benefit from regular supervision meetings. In addition, the manager closely monitors staff practice. She has introduced questionnaires to test staff's knowledge, which are individual to each staff's level of need. She provides feedback to help them improve and identifies additional training needs. However, these improvements are not yet embedded fully into practice to ensure that the quality continues to improve and is sustained.
• Children relish the time they spend outdoors. Babies shout with delight when they see Peppa and George, the nursery pigs. They laugh as they try to imitate the sounds they make. Older children use magnifying glasses as they hunt for bugs under logs and stones. They match the bug to the pictures they have in their books and tick to say they have found them. Children learn to care for the nursery rabbits, who roam freely in the outside play area.
• Children have many opportunities to develop their physical skills. Staff provide children who are beginning to walk with interesting, table-height activities to encourage early standing and strengthen their leg muscles. Children ride bicycles with dexterity and climb and balance on the outdoor equipment. They develop their small-muscle skills in preparation for early writing. They squeeze and roll play dough, scoop and pour oats, and make shapes using sand.
• Children enjoy listening to stories and looking at books. They name familiar characters and guess what will happen next. Children join in with gusto as they sing songs and rhymes. Even the youngest children know the actions. They choose their favourite, either verbally, through gesture or with the use of a picture song bag. However, at times, staff do not support children's communication and language well enough to help them to make the best possible progress in this area.
• Staff value children's opinions. Children are given choices about what they want to do and where they want to play. Older children are involved in the children's committee. They meet once a term to talk about what they like and to suggest new ideas. They help staff to plan events to raise money for local charities. This helps children to be involved and understand that their views are important.
• Parent partnership is good. Staff share information with parents about their child's day and how they can support children's learning at home. Parents spoken to are happy with the service they receive. They say that they have seen a big improvement since the last inspection.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• embed fully the changes that have been recently implemented, to ensure practice across the nursery continues to improve and develop
• help staff to recognise when to support and extend children's communication and language even further.