Perfect Start Montessori School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

All children, including those who have recently started attending, demonstrate that they feel happy, safe and secure in the warm and welcoming nursery. Leaders and staff provide an inclusive environment for all children. An effective key-person system supports children's emotional development. This helps to foster children's early attachments and meet individual children's care needs from the start. Children demonstrate a positive attitude to their learning and behave well. The dedicated leaders and staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and conduct. They act as positive role models. There are rules and boundaries in place to help children to understand what is expected of them.

Children make good progress from their starting points in development. Leaders establish effective partnerships with other professionals in children's care and learning. They regularly liaise with them and follow their advice. Leaders use this information to provide targeted support for individual children as part of the curriculum. Staff promote children's communication and language skills effectively. Throughout their interactions, they provide a dialogue, repeat words and phrases and introduce new words to extend children's vocabulary. Children talk with confidence and engage in effective two-way conversations with staff, who listen with interest to what they say.

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

• Partnerships with parents and carers are well established. Parents praise staff members for their support and guidance. Staff gather valuable information about children's interests and development. They use this to guide activities. Staff inform parents about their children's care and education through verbal discussions and an online app. They give ideas to encourage children's learning at home. This helps to support continuity in children's learning and development.
• Staff skilfully use children's play to develop their understanding of mathematics. For example, as children use shape cutters with dough, staff encourage them to name simple shapes. Children use language associated with size, such as 'tall, bigger' and 'small', as they build towers with construction blocks.
• Staff read high-quality texts to children, which link to the theme they are learning about. For instance, children explore their feelings through reading a book about a colour monster. These interactive story times engage children and support them to develop a love of reading.
• Staff support children's creative skills successfully. Children enjoy using recycled materials, such as cardboard tubes and paper, to create models. Staff encourage children to make colourful patterns with ribbons on a giant weaving table. Children enjoy making pictures using paint and brushes. This helps children to develop good creative skills.
• Leaders care about the well-being of staff, children and families. Staff receive regular supervision sessions and access to ongoing training. They also attend team meetings to share ideas for improvement. Leaders model high-quality teaching practice. However, there are inconsistencies in the quality of some staff's teaching, particularly in the use of open-ended questions to support children who speak English as an additional language. This does not consistently support children to extend their communication skills.
• Staff are committed to providing a curriculum to ensure that all children develop the knowledge and skills they need for the next stage of their learning. They assess children's development to find out what they already know and can do. Staff use this information to identify any emerging gaps in children's development and plan for their next steps in learning.
• Children enjoy play and learning in the outdoor areas at the nursery and in local parks. They develop their physical skills, such as as they climb and slide on play equipment and negotiate ride-on toy vehicles. Staff help children to develop their coordination skills by encouraging them to pass balls through hoops. They promote children's overall physical development well.
• Staff work in partnership with parents to promote healthy lifestyles for children, for example only water is permitted in the nursery. Staff give parents guidelines on what should be included in a healthy packed lunch. They also encourage children to try new fruits and vegetables through cooking activities.
• Staff help children to learn key life skills. Children enjoy calm mealtimes, where they learn about social interaction. Staff help children to put on outdoor clothing and footwear as they become increasingly independent. Children's personal skills are well promoted.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen performance management so that all staff are supported to deliver consistently high-quality teaching, with particular focus on children who speak English as an additional language.