Planet Tiny Toddlers

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show extremely high levels of curiosity and enthusiasm when exploring the highly welcoming and inspiring environment. Staff plan an abundance of exciting and creative activities, making the curriculum very rich and varied. As a result, children are extremely eager to learn and show very positive attitudes towards new experiences. Staff are excellent role models. They have very high expectations for children's learning and behaviour. Staff successfully encourage children to explore, think and make decisions in an extremely nurturing and supportive way.

Children joyfully engage in fun and interactive singing and dancing sessions along to the guitar. They display very high levels of emotional well-being, positive behaviour and exuberance as they explore different instruments and join in with familiar songs. This helps to build children's confidence and creativity in a fun and highly effective way. Children show a great interest and an emerging knowledge as they learn about their different body parts when exploring body maps, bones and play dough. Staff successfully introduce new knowledge in relation to skeletons, muscles and how milk keeps children's bones strong and healthy. This supports children's understanding of the world and the importance of leading healthy lifestyles. Furthermore, children delight in exploring a range of spices and foods as they play imaginatively in the home corner. Staff skilfully extend children's language skills and introduce new vocabulary, such as 'sweet', 'delicious' and 'fragrant'. Children are evidently flourishing and love their time at the nursery.

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

• Leaders and staff are highly motivated to create an extremely unique learning environment in order to support children to reach their full potential. Staff know children extremely well and have a secure knowledge of child development. This helps staff to successfully plan a wide variety of different experiences to foster individual children's personal needs and learning. Children thrive and make strong progress.
• Partnerships with parents are securely embedded across the nursery. For instance, parents receive daily updates about the activities and their children's new achievements. Staff also plan innovative events in order for parents to feel part of the nursery life. For instance, they hold yoga and gardening sessions in a local orchard, as well as hosting picnics and quizzes. This helps to build a strong sense of community.
• Children have excellent opportunities to learn about diversity. For instance, staff host an 'international day' where parents and children are invited to dress up and share food connected to their home cultures. Parents also come in to take part in special activities with children. For instance, they make bread together when celebrating Hanukkah. This supports children to deepen their awareness of others lives different to their own.
• Staff create a rich-language environment. Staff are highly ambitious in terms of what they believe children can learn, understand and achieve. Staff constantly expand children's vocabulary and explain the meaning of new words. For instance, they explain how biology is learning about the human body and use words, such as 'excavating', when investigating dinosaur bones in the sand.
• Children have superb opportunities to learn about excellent hygiene routines and cleanliness. For instance, staff plan scientific activities to demonstrate how germs can be spread using glitter. They also support children to explore different elements under microscopes and teach children about bacteria, viruses and the importance of washing their hands.
• Leaders and staff demonstrate high levels of integrity to create a truly inclusive environment. For instance, children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive excellent support from staff and other early years professionals. This helps to create strong levels of consistency across the nursery and home to aid children's future development.
• Staff communicate excellent levels of well-being. They express that they receive brilliant support and guidance from their leaders and colleagues. Staff also state there is strong commitment to collectively strive for ongoing excellence for the children and families that attend.
• Staff have frequent opportunities to engage in continuous professional development. For instance, several staff discuss the benefits of engaging in training to promote young children's emotional well-being and neurodiversity. This contributes effectively to staff offering sensitive and attentive care to meet the individual needs of the children that attend. As a result, children show that they are extremely happy and secure.