Playhouse Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The friendly and nurturing staff greet children with care when they arrive at the homely nursery. They engage in meaningful conversations with children and their families about their routines and experiences away from nursery to ensure they fully meet their needs. Staff use the information they find out about children extremely well to plan a vast range of motivating activities that reflect their individual interests, entice them and build on their development. Because of this, children settle with complete ease and demonstrate that they feel comfortable and safe in the clean and well-thought-out environment. They form extremely close relationships with staff, who support them to build friendships with their peers from a young age.

Staff share high expectations for all children and deliver an ambitious curriculum that supports them to acquire essential lifelong skills. As a result, all children make good progress from their starting points and are well-prepared for the transition to school. Staff carefully consider what children need to learn. For example, they teach pre-school children about the life cycle of a butterfly as they investigate caterpillars. Children are highly curious and understand the caterpillars will make a 'cocoon'. Staff introduce and model key vocabulary to test children's understanding. They extend children's learning further by exploring simple mathematical concepts, such as counting. Children quickly identify that there are 'five' caterpillars.

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

• Children display a love for learning and become highly engrossed in the experiences that staff provide. For instance, babies squeal with excitement when they see the monkey puppet during music and movement sessions. They gaze in awe and wiggle their bodies as staff enthusiastically sing familiar action rhymes. Babies demonstrate good listening and attention skills. They follow simple instructions and maintain engagement for extended periods.
• Staff demonstrate great empathy and warmth. They respond to children's emotional needs very well. This contributes to children's positive behaviours and supports their emotional literacy. Children have many opportunities to develop their understanding of different feelings and emotions. They are very emotionally aware and ask staff if they can talk about their feelings. Staff encourage children to use colours to visualise and express how they are feeling, which builds on their self-regulation skills.
• Teaching throughout the nursery is good and, in some instances, outstanding. Staff benefit from routine supervision meetings and express that leaders are supportive of their well-being. Leaders frequently observe staff and evaluate teaching practices to identify further professional development focuses. However, these processes are not yet fully embedded to support all staff to consistently extend the quality of their teaching to the highest possible level.
• There are stringent processes in place to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Leaders are passionate about providing every child with the very best early education. They work in close collaboration with parents and professionals to ensure children with SEND receive the greatest support at the earliest opportunity. Staff set realistic, yet challenging, targets to enable children with SEND to make the best possible progress.
• Staff empower children to become independent. Children enjoy managing tasks for themselves, such as wiping their own nose and disposing of their tissue. During activities, pre-school children demonstrate high levels of self-control as they make a fruit kebab caterpillar. They persist as they scoop the inside of the watermelon and are confident to ask for help if they need it.
• Staff routinely monitor children's progress to identify and address any gaps in their development. They prioritise children's communication, language and literacy skills. The nursery has a dedicated library space to foster a love of reading. Toddlers concentrate intently as they listen to their favourite stories. Staff differentiate their interactions to challenge children's language skills further. All children are becoming confident communicators.
• Leaders value the importance of working in partnership with parents. Parents speak highly of staff and remark that they feel like an extended family. They explain that the nursery is a wonderful place and staff work tirelessly to build on children's passions and talents to support their development. Parents comment that staff share regular updates about children's progress and recommend ways that parents can build on children's learning outside of nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen current processes for providing staff with feedback on their practice to ensure the quality of all staff's teaching is consistently at the highest possible level.