Plantpots Jesmond

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children run in enthusiastically and very happily start their day in this outstanding nursery. Older children have daily access to the extremely stimulating 'outdoor classroom' in the on-site forest area. Children immediately become deeply engrossed in exciting and challenging activities. For instance, they develop their hand-to-eye coordination and concentrate intently when they use hammers and saws in the 'woodwork hut'. Children understand that they must wear goggles and gloves to keep themselves safe when handling tools. Staff have high expectations for children. They plan many opportunities for children to investigate. Children are highly motivated. They enthusiastically play and explore with a vast range of natural and everyday resources. For example, staff provide real pots, pans and large cutlery with herbs and vegetables. Younger children eagerly cut up onions, grate carrots and add them to mud and water to make their own concoctions.

Children's behaviour is excellent. They are extremely happy and safe in the nursery. Children happily take turns without prompting. For example, children wait to have a go on a large swing without prompting, and take turns at pushing each other. Staff provide many activities to encourage children to manage their own behaviour and recognise their emotions. Children look at themselves in mirrors, read books and play with 'emotion stones' to help them to recognise how they are feeling. Children spontaneously tell the inspector that they 'love nursery'.

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

• Staff plan and successfully implement a broad curriculum, which enables all children to thrive and make the best possible progress. Through their detailed observations, all staff have a thorough knowledge of children's stages of development and interests. Staff use this information to plan exciting and stimulating activities, which take account of what each individual child needs to learn next.
• Staff offer children many activities that help them to gain a deep understanding about themselves and to respect others. Families bring in resources and books from their own cultures, or from when they have visited a different country. Staff carefully consider the resources on offer to make sure that they reflect diversity and the home lives of children.
• Children who are learning English as an additional language are extremely well supported. Staff learn key words in children's home language and use visual prompts and well-thought-out language to support them. Many staff in the nursery are bi-lingual and children are constantly exposed to different languages. Older children confidently count and name animals in Spanish as they play.
• Staff skilfully plan activities that challenge children to develop their literacy and early writing skills. Younger children make marks in mud, paint and water. Older children make meaningful marks using pencils and clipboards when they play. Staff display carefully chosen books indoors and outdoors to encourage children to develop a love of reading.
• Staff support children to develop excellent levels of independence. Older children confidently pour their own drinks and clear away after meals. Younger children ably wash their own hands. Mealtimes are a highly sociable occasion where staff and children eat healthy, home-cooked food together .
• Children have superb opportunities to develop their mathematical skills when they play. For example, staff encourage younger children to count shells and match them to reflective numbers outdoors. Children investigate with magnifying glasses and comment that things get 'bigger' and 'smaller'. Older children make patterns with peas and slices of carrot. Staff successfully extend their learning by encouraging children to make repeating patterns.
• Staff plan exceptional opportunities for children to learn about the world around them. Children plant vegetables in their greenhouse and understand that they need to water them. They enjoy helping to care for the nursery's rabbits, who hop around as children play. Older children investigate ice and water and proudly tell staff that polar bears live in Antarctica.
• Staff comment that they receive excellent levels of support and guidance from the managers. They all feel valued and are extremely happy working in the nursery. Staff comment that the introduction of peer observations has greatly helped them enhance their practice. Managers continually provide staff with ways to extend their knowledge and practice. For example, they encourage staff to further their qualifications and gain accreditation in forest school activities and the Montessori method of teaching.
• Staff have highly effective partnerships with parents. They share a wealth of information with them about their children's development. Due to COVID-19 (coronavirus) restrictions, some of the activities that are usually offered to parents have been limited. Staff and parents are looking forward to resuming an open-door policy and 'experience days', such as forest school activities and visiting for afternoon tea, when guidelines allow.