Poplars Blossoms Nursery School Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff warmly greet children with a smile. Children are quick to settle, and confidently separate from their parents and carers, showing they feel safe and secure. Children understand the rules and routines of the day, which are embedded by staff. When staff announce when it is time for lunch, children promptly stop what they are doing and get ready to go to the rooms where they eat.

Staff encourage children to use their manners. For example, when children hold their plates up for more, staff model manners and encourage children to do the same. Staff enable children to learn about how to keep themselves healthy and safe. Staff are clear on the messages they give to children. For example, staff encourage children to wash their hands while they sing a song to make sure they wash them for long enough to remove germs. Staff show children the steam coming up off their food and ask what this means. Children say that means you cannot eat it, because it is too hot. Staff support children to understand they need to blow their food to cool it down.

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

• The provider has previously failed to notify Ofsted of a change of company secretary. This is a breach of requirement, although does not have a detrimental effect on children's safety, care or education, as appropriate suitability checks were completed by the organisation.
• Managers and staff know what they want children to learn and understand child development. Staff know the children well and plan the environment to help to develop children's next steps. Staff provide children with experiences outside of the nursery school. For example, they have trips to farms to develop children's knowledge of the world around them.
• Staff support children to develop skills towards independence. They provide children with spoons and forks to eat. Younger children are shown how to load their spoons and are fed by staff. Staff encourage toddlers to use their cutlery rather than their fingers. When they successfully feed themselves, staff verbally praise them promptly and clap. Older children serve their food themselves using large utensils.
• Children's imagination skills are enhanced by staff. Staff position crates and boxes for children to explore and suggest what children could make with the items. Children work together to create different vehicles using the crates. They sit inside them and pretend to drive them. Staff continue to prompt children, which supports children to engage for longer periods of time in their chosen activity.
• Staff support children to develop physically. For example, staff model large movements, stomping in the garden and moving their bodies in different ways.
• Children copy their actions, lifting their legs high and balancing on one foot. Staff position furniture for younger children to pull up on and place items out of reach to build core stability. Older children are supported by staff to ride bicycles and scooters. Staff explain how to make them move.
• Parents are more than happy with the nursery school. They receive regular updates about their children's progress and what they can do at home to support their children's learning, for example, counting and how to support older children's letter recognition. Parents talk about the way their children's confidence has grown while at the nursery school. Parents comment that staff are friendly and approachable. They can discuss their personal circumstances and nursery managers support them.
• Children behave well generally and know the routines, which have been embedded. Children walk to where they eat without being prompted. However, staff are not consistent in telling children what is expected or that their actions have an impact on others. For example, outside children are not told how to move around when holding large sticks, or the impact their actions could have on others.
• Staff know when to interact with children, and do this often. They engage in what the children choose to play with and introduce children to new information. For example, staff talk to children about a fair. They tell children about different fairs and what they might have at them, such as a goose fair. However, within some staff's interactions, they do not extend what children already know. Some staff repeat back what children have already commented on and others ask questions of children but do not continue the interaction when children do not respond.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to provide consistent approaches to setting and implementing behaviour expectations, to enhance children's understanding of what is expected and to understand how their behaviour affects others
• develop the consistency of staff interactions, to extend children's learning beyond what they already know and can do.