Queen Elizabeth's Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arriving at the setting are met by cheerful, welcoming staff. They show that they feel safe as they set off to their childcare rooms. Staff arrange the indoor and outdoor spaces in ways that offer children familiar and new things to do. In the 'Fledgling' room, babies crawl and toddle to find things that they want to investigate. Staff sing and talk with them. This promotes babies' babble and early speech. In the 'Cygnet' room, staff plan a variety of role-play areas. They join in with toddlers' play and conversation. This promotes children's communication skills and helps them to learn more about the world.

Staff create a calm and purposeful atmosphere in the setting. This promotes children's engagement and enjoyment. Children develop a positive attitude to learning and behave well. Parents and carers comment on how effectively staff work in partnership with them. They say that the two-way communication helps everyone to follow a consistent approach when children are toilet training. Parents say that staff spend time getting to know children who are new to the setting. They say that staff provide sensitive encouragement when children transfer to a new room. This promotes children's emotional well-being and resilience.

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

• Staff worked hard to address the quality of the provision after the last inspection. The arrangements for supervising sleeping children have been thoroughly revised. Children's comfort and safety are unfailingly promoted by vigilant, knowledgeable staff. The setting engaged positively with local authority support. This has helped the team to examine and improve practice.
• The setting is ambitious for staff's well-being and achievement. There is a strong focus on enabling staff to try out their own ideas and to develop leadership skills. Staff complete training that enhances their skills and knowledge. Those undertaking accredited training share their learning with colleagues. Staff become confident professionals and this helps them to promote children's development and welfare.
• Staff use a range of methods to assess and plan for children's learning. Babies discover a lengthening row of photos of themselves on the wall. The photos record and celebrate their development. At the start of the year, pre-school children make their own drawing of family members. Staff repeat the activity at the end of the year and note how children's representational skills have developed. All children make good progress.
• The setting's support for children with emerging and diagnosed special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is effective. Every child's communication development is checked regularly. This helps to alert staff to early signs of delay. The setting works in partnership with specialist professionals and staff share children's learning plans with colleagues. This helps everyone to work together to support and measure the progress of children with SEND.
• Staff support the language development of children of all ages. They use and teach a core vocabulary of nouns and verbs during lively conversation and active play. They help pre-school children to explore the meaning of interesting words, such as 'caring'. However, sometimes, staff ask questions that do not help children to deepen their thinking and to extend what they already know.
• Staff promote children's early literacy. They identify a 'book of the week' and explore the story in detail with children. Staff help children to think about the feelings and motives of the characters and to remember the sequence of events in the story. Children join in with repeated refrains and experience the rhyme and rhythm of rich language. Children learn that books are interesting and this encourages them to become readers themselves.
• Children's physical development is promoted well. Staff plan activities, such as dough play, that help children to strengthen their small muscles. Children take part in yoga and this promotes their balance and core strength. Staff offer children a choice of either water or milk to drink. Children learn that this helps them to keep their teeth healthy.
• Staff understand and follow the setting's safeguarding procedures. They check the welfare and whereabouts of absent children in a timely way. They know what to do if they have concerns about the behaviour of colleagues towards children. Staff's management of risks to children's health and safety is robust. For example, they check and record the temperature of the food delivered from the main kitchen.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff to focus even more closely on the detail of their interactions with children, especially with regard to the questions that staff ask children and why they ask them.