Portico at Moss Bank

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive at this inspirational and happy nursery. They come in smiling, greeting the staff with a cheerful 'good morning' and eager to start their day. Children come together to have a social breakfast, serving themselves from a range of healthy foods and confidently chatting to staff and each other.

Babies are smiley, happy and very relaxed as they confidently explore their surroundings. They enjoy lots of cuddles and one-to-one warm interactions with their key person. They clearly feel nurtured and secure. Babies chuckle as they use chalks and crayons to draw on a huge piece of paper. They are supported to develop their core muscles and coordination skills exceptionally well, as they stretch and reach for the paper and crayons. Older children in the room wait in excited anticipation for their sing and sign session to start. They listen intently, and patiently wait for their turn to choose a rhyming song. They all laugh, clap and join in, expertly using signs to support the singing. This supports the rapid development of children's language and communication skills, especially their early literacy skills.

Older children choose to work cooperatively in the water tray to fill a bottle with water using a funnel. They are engrossed as one child holds the funnel and bottle and their friends carefully scoop up cups of water to tip in. This takes quite a while, but they are determined to fill the bottle, and exclaim in delight as the water reaches the top. Children are highly motivated in their learning and are prepared to continue to try hard even when something is difficult.

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

• Staff have a very clear shared understanding about what they want every child to learn. Assessment is used highly effectively to identify what children know and can do, and what their next steps are. This is demonstrated when children make pretend cakes with play dough. They carefully roll and shape the dough and count out four candles for their birthday. Staff skilfully use the activity to develop the children's language, asking a range of different and sharply focused questions to develop the learning of every child. This ensures that all children make the very best progress.
• Leaders and managers are passionate about all children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), achieving their maximum potential. They are determined to get the very best additional support for children with SEND. They make timely referrals and work proactively with a range of agencies. This ensures that all children are very well supported and make rapid progress. Parents talk with pride about how their children have thrived since starting to attend the nursery and how their behaviour, language and social skills in particular, have developed tremendously well.
• Children behave exceptionally well. They are polite, kind and patient and demonstrate high levels of self-control and independence. They serve themselves from dishes of appetising chicken and rice and wait patiently until everyone has their food before they start to eat. Staff seize every opportunity to promote children's learning; they talk with the children about making healthy choices and introduce advanced new vocabulary such as 'carbohydrate'.
• Children have tremendous fun playing outside, developing in an extensive range of skills. They choose from a challenging range of equipment and scream in delight as they run and play in the wooded area. Their coordination and physical skills are very well developed as they dart in and around the trees, negotiating space and changing speed.
• Staff expertly support pre-school children and toddlers to explore and develop their imagination and role play ideas outside. They stamp around and swish through pretend grass, pretending to be on a hunt for bears, and follow a recipe for 'stick stew' in the mud kitchen. These opportunities greatly promote children's language and physical skills and their expressive imagination.
• Staff are very well supported in their professional development through regular observations of practice and precise and high-quality feedback from leaders and managers. This informs staff appraisal and identifies further areas of training. Staff work exceptionally well as a team and are keen to learn from each other. For example, one staff member who is skilled in Makaton signing is delivering training to the rest of the team. This ensures that the excellent quality of teaching continues to strengthen and improve.
• Parents are full of praise for the nursery and staff. They feel well informed about their child's progress and how they can continue the learning at home. They are highly appreciative of the work of the nursery team, saying that, 'They have all the time in the world for the whole family.' The nursery team continues to be a much-valued source of support and advice for parents, even after their children have moved on to school.