Queen Mary Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are warmly welcomed by caring and friendly staff, who take the time to get to know each child and their family well. Staff forge close relationships with children, and their interactions are positive. Babies confidently vocalise and use gestures to let staff know they want more to eat, and they snuggle into staff's laps to enjoy their bottle of milk. Children across the nursery are confident and readily allow visitors to join in their play. Their behaviour is good overall and minor disputes are quickly resolved by staff.

The manager and staff have designed a broad and interesting curriculum based around children's interests and learning needs. The outdoor environment is just as well planned for as the indoor rooms, enabling children who prefer to learn and play outside to benefit from activities covering all areas of learning. Older children plan menus at the mud kitchen with real vegetables, and younger children develop their senses as they explore lemons and limes at the water play. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) also benefit from the varied learning environments and receive good care and support from staff to make progress from their individual starting points.

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

• Staff help children to learn how to identify their emotions. They use books such as 'The Colour Monster' to help children learn more about their feelings. Children sort coloured spaghetti, such as yellow for happiness, blue for sadness and red for anger, into different pots and learn about colours as they do so.
• The quality of teaching overall is good. Staff show a good understanding of how children learn. Babies and toddlers enjoy lots of messy play, for example with coloured water to pour down tubes and with toy animals in cornflour mixed with water. Older children test their physical skills as they climb on the climbing frame. Staff's exchanges with children are not always pitched at the right level, however. They can at times be either too advanced or not challenging enough. For example, older children are not always asked to expand on their thoughts during discussions to develop their thinking skills further.
• Staff benefit from a management team that is supportive and cares about their well-being. The nominated individual has brought in a quality assurance manager and additional special educational needs coordinator support to assist the staff team. The quality assurance manager arranges staff competitions between the nursery and its sister settings, such as a magical story time competition, which encourages staff to think about the activities they provide from a different perspective. This in turn makes activities more fun and exciting for children.
• Staff observe children as they play and have a good understanding of what individual children know and can do. They help children to develop positive attitudes to learning and to persevere in their play. As a result, children spend long periods engaged in activities. Staff work hard to promote cultural capital by giving children lots of different enriching experiences. For example, children took part in a project where they hatched their own chicks. Additional funding is used well to promote the outdoor environment for those children who do not have their own outside space at home.
• The management team has worked in partnership with some parents to establish a support group for the parents of children with SEND. This enables parents to make connections and to share coping skills and advice. Feedback from parents is positive. They comment that the staff are enthusiastic and caring and that the manager is approachable, hardworking and has made a positive change to the nursery. Parents of children with SEND receive regular updates about their child's individual education plan. However, general information for parents does not always include precise information about the next steps planned for their child to help parents to extend learning at home.
• Staff follow hygiene routines effectively and understand how to promote children's good health. They provide children with healthy food and teach them the importance of drinking water regularly.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide further support for staff to develop their interactions with children to help them recognise when to simplify their exchanges with younger children and when to provide more challenge during conversations with older and most-able children to develop their thinking skills
• enhance the information shared with parents so that they are given more precise details about their children's progress and next steps in learning to support them to extend their children's learning at home.