Oxford Gems Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are extremely happy and clearly enjoy the time they spend in this very warm and welcoming nursery. They settle quickly on arrival and immediately become absorbed in the rich and varied range of opportunities available. Children understand the arrangements that have been implemented due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. For example, they use hand sanitiser on arrival and know that they must wash their hands frequently.

Children swiftly build warm and trusting relationships with staff, who have high expectations of them. Children thrive on the positive praise and encouragement that they receive from the kind, patient and nurturing staff team. Children confidently seek out staff when they need reassurance, demonstrating that they feel safe and secure. All children make good progress in their learning, including those who receive additional funding.

Children consistently show high levels of respect for one another. They listen carefully to their friends and wait patiently for their turn as they play collaboratively together. Children demonstrate an impressive understanding of what is expected of them. They share with staff the rules of the nursery, carefully explaining what they must do. For example, children confidently talk about using their 'observant eyes, kind hands' and 'polite words'. They are keen to remind each other that 'sharing is caring' and that they must say please and thank you. As a result of staff's careful teaching and explanation, children's behaviour is exemplary.

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

• Children demonstrate excellent independence and positive attitudes to their play and learning. For example, young children concentrate intently as they play with dough. They show perseverance and determination as they carefully try and copy what staff are modelling. Children keep on trying until they achieve what they set out to do. Staff celebrate their efforts with an abundance of praise and encouragement, which helps to raise children's self-esteem. Furthermore, at snack time, children have the opportunity to develop and consolidate new skills. They show increasing confidence and ability when spreading butter on their toast as they recall and remember what they need to do.
• Children flourish because they have secure emotional attachments with the passionate and dedicated staff team. Staff work exceptionally hard to ensure that they have detailed information about children's individual heritage, personality and their existing skills and abilities. They successfully use this information to help children to settle and quickly become accustomed to the nursery routine. For example, children who speak English as an additional language are able to refer to pictures to help them to understand what is happening next. Furthermore, staff use key words from children's home languages to further aid their understanding.
• Staff have created wonderful opportunities for children to learn about the world around them. For example, children have been mesmerised by the demolition and construction of a new Mosque outside their nursery window. Builders have visited the children, explaining their occupation and have spoken about the tools that they use and the uniform that they wear. Staff have further developed children's emerging interest and fascination by creating their own construction project within the nursery. Consequently, children have learned new vocabulary, such as, 'cement mixer' and 'excavator'. They show an awareness of people in their community and the role that they play.
• Overall, staff support children's emerging communication and language skills well. Staff continuously introduce new vocabulary as children play and use repetition to reinforce children's understanding. However, on occasions, staff do not consistently use skilful questioning techniques. Sometimes, staff ask too many questions and do not always give children sufficient time to think and respond.
• Partnerships with parents are very good. Parents comment positively on the care and learning opportunities that their children receive. They particularly appreciate how staff have endeavoured to ensure that communication streams are maintained throughout the pandemic. They talk favourably about the dedicated application that staff use to share photographs and the home learning information and advice that staff provide, to help further extend children's learning at home.
• The dedicated and passionate manager leads an enthusiastic staff team. She provides timely and purposeful support for all staff through detailed supervision sessions, observations of practice and staff meetings. This encourages staff to engage in reflective practice and helps to raise the quality of their teaching and increase their knowledge and skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to strengthen their knowledge of how to consistently use skilful questioning techniques, so that children are given sufficient time to think and respond and can further develop their communication and language skills.