RAFA Kidz Walters Ash

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish at this welcoming and homely nursery. Staff are highly responsive and attuned to children's individual care needs. They gather detailed information from parents when children start, and use this effectively to replicate routines, especially for babies. The impact of this successful approach is evident at breakfast time, when children happily engage with staff and each other. The atmosphere is joyful with singing, sharing books and lively conversations. This well-established morning routine, sets a positive tone for the busy day ahead.

Throughout the day, children display a true sense of belonging and enjoy free access to the well-resourced indoor and outdoor environments. They respond well to staff's clear expectations and consistently demonstrate positive behaviour.

The rich and varied curriculum is tailored to reflect children's needs, interests and abilities. Leaders have carefully prioritised children's communication and language development, social and emotional growth and physical skills. The well-planned activities provide ample opportunities for all children to explore, develop and grow. Staff remain close by and actively engage in children's spontaneous play. For example, babies pretend to go to the shops to buy 'groceries'. They wave goodbye, and expertly carry a basket across their arm. Toddlers use a variety of tools to collect and transfer mud to a planting area. Pre-school children build dams in the water tray and proudly show how they manage to stop the water flow. All children progress well at this setting.

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

• Developing children's communication and language is given the utmost priority, for example, dedicated staff foster a love for books across the nursery. Children independently select their favourite books for staff to read. They sit close and become immersed when staff read the story, with warmth and enthusiasm. Babies keenly show their books to new visitors and point at pictures. Toddlers practise familiar words and phrases and giggle at the funny parts. Pre-school children retell their favourite stories as they reenact the events through role play. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, develop a good knowledge of words and grow in confidence.
• Children of all ages are extremely friendly and sociable. They readily welcome new visitors, ask thoughtful questions and show genuine interest in finding out more about them. They eagerly share their ideas and achievements with staff, who celebrate alongside them. Babies initiate simple games on soft mats, while older children collaborate in activities like play dough modelling. They confidently discuss and test out their ideas together. These experiences promote children's cooperative learning and shared decision-making.
• Children develop their independence skills from a young age. Staff provide plenty of opportunities throughout the day for children to manage their self-care needs. For instance, they encourage children to wash their own hands, eat with cutlery and drink from open cups, without spilling. They support children to try and complete tasks for themselves, before asking for help. This helps to boost children's self-esteem and prepares them well for their eventual move to school.
• Leaders and staff care deeply about children and show a genuine commitment to do their best for them. Their interactions with children are warm and responsive. However, while staff carefully consider the curriculum and children's next steps, they sometimes introduce skills that are too advanced for children's stage of learning. On occasion, they do not sufficiently take account of the developmental sequence to reach these end goals. During these times, staff's planning and delivery are not always precisely aligned with what children already know and can do, in order to enable them to maximise their learning.
• Overall, arrangements for supervision and professional development of staff are good. Leaders carry out room observations and supervisions to monitor staff's practice. However, minor inconsistencies in staff's practice have not yet been addressed fully. That said, leaders are keen to implement clearer and more targeted plans to support individual staff, and ensure an even higher standard of education across the setting.
• Leaders and staff work incredibly hard to continually involve and engage parents in their children's learning. They offer parents a variety of engaging home learning packs for different ages and abilities, such as story packs with puppets and activities to strengthen children's fine motor skills. Parents welcome these and highly value the support staff provide. Planned initiatives, such as a 'deployment box' specifically for military families, shows an ongoing commitment from leaders to support children's emotional well-being when their parents are away from home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support all staff to sequence the planning and delivery of the curriculum more effectively to ensure they precisely build on individual children's existing knowledge and skills
• enhance staff supervisions and provide targeted support for individual staff to address minor inconsistences in their practice more sharply.