Rainbow House

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish in this inspirational and nurturing nursery. Leaders and staff support all children to make excellent progress in their learning and development. The passionate and enthusiastic staff know each individual child very well. All children arrive excited at this welcoming nursery and settle with ease. Staff plan a wide range of engaging activities that children are thrilled to join in and explore. All children benefit from superb support from staff, who understand each child's unique interests and ways of learning.

Leaders construct an exceptionally ambitious curriculum that is accessible and inclusive to all. This enables all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who speak English as an additional language, to thrive. Children demonstrate exceptional independence skills and manage their self-care superbly. They are thoroughly well prepared for the next phase in their learning journey. Staff are exemplary role models and have exceptionally high expectations of children's behaviour. They are consistent in clarifying and reminding children about the rules in the nursery. Staff teach children to learn to cooperate with each other and take turns extremely well. For example, they ring the bell to indicate that it is time to move on to another activity when children are playing with different resources in the hall to support their physical development skills. Children consistently demonstrate excellent behaviour and positive attitudes towards their learning.

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

• Staff plan rich opportunities to teach children about the world around them and their community. For example, children frequently engage in charity work and giving back to the community. Children raise funds and deliver care packages to the homeless shelter. Leaders also use additional funding to support children's individual needs effectively. For example, they prepare learning packs with resources, such as glue sticks, scissors, pencil and paper, for children to practise developing their skills at home.
• Children with SEND receive superb support. The passionate and knowledgeable leaders and staff build excellent relationships with parents and external professionals to support children to achieve positive outcomes. They have individualised plans for children with SEND that staff frequently review and discuss with parents.
• Parents speak extremely highly of the nursery and staff. They are impressed with the excellent progress their children make. Parents appreciate that they are kept thoroughly informed about their children's learning and development.
• Leaders and staff passionately support children to embed a deep and meaningful respect for people's diversity. Staff teach children about equality and enable them to explore the similarities and differences between their culture and beliefs with those of others. They plan rich experiences to enhance children's understanding further. For example, staff plan trips to visit different places of worship and invite different faith leaders into the setting.
• Leaders work with staff to provide an environment where all children can enhance their understanding of different emotions and learn effective strategies to manage their feelings well. Staff are highly responsive to children's needs and promote their emotional well-being exceptionally well. For example, staff provide opportunities for children to self-register and use the 'feelings' interactive display to describe how they are feeling daily. This supports staff to effectively support children who have expressed they feel angry or sad. Staff take the children to the calming area and discuss what made them feel sad and provide support to help them transition to their learning well.
• Staff expertly support children to develop their early literacy skills. They understand the importance of building on children's skills sequentially and ensure that all children have ample opportunities to practise developing their early writing and reading skills. They ensure they prioritise building children's language and communication skills, such as identifying and learning the difference between different environmental sounds. This builds strong foundations for children to develop their early literacy skills and has a positive impact on the progress they make.
• Leaders have high aspirations for all staff. They ensure that staff have a bespoke development plan. Leaders provide staff with regular coaching and mentoring to support them to develop their individual practice. Staff are extremely proud to be a part of this inspirational nursery. They value the targeted supervision meetings and excellent opportunities leaders offer them to extend their practice. They feel extremely well supported.
• Staff expertly support children's communication and language skills development. They plan activities around the core stories they want children to learn. Children use puppets and resources to retell the story and engage in imaginative play. Children look at books independently and visit the local library regularly. Staff model language, introduce children to a wide array of vocabulary and teach children to use past and present tense in their speech.
• Staff skilfully provide opportunities for children to solve problems through practical activities and discussions. For example, children learn to halve, divide and share fruits equally. In addition, staff encourage them to use vocabulary, such as 'half' and 'quarter', to describe how full a bottle is. This supports children to develop an excellent knowledge of division and fractions in relation to their age.