Rowan Tree Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

This setting provides a happy, natural and nurturing environment. This allows all children to feel happy, safe and secure. Each child has a named stone in the entrance area, ensuring they develop a sense of belonging to the setting before they have even entered the building. In the setting, there are lots of photos of the children and their families, as well as opportunities for children to complete self-registration. Children are extremely confident and well behaved. They enter eager to explore the exciting activities available for them. For example, children go straight over to the duck eggs in their room, excited to see that the first duckling has hatched. They show their parents, and staff discuss with the children what has happened.

Babies separate from their parents with ease to their key persons. This relationship is very strong and supports children to feel safe in their environment. The babies enjoy the free-flowing access to the rooftop garden. They find different ways to climb up the ramp, depending on their physical abilities. Staff allow them to explore and practise before offering support if needed. The older children arrive and immediately become immersed in play, seeking out their friends. This develops their social skills.

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

• Staff are extremely effective in supporting children to investigate activities and become critical thinkers. Younger children explore spinning toys. They try different ways to get the spinners to move, smiling and becoming excited as they move faster.
• The older children continue their learning of the human body. They create self-portraits using natural materials. Children talk about their creations. They confidently explain how they have created a food pipe leading to the stomach and into their intestine. This demonstrates the learning which has already taken place and allows children opportunities to revisit what they have learned, embedding their knowledge even further.
• Staff have a deep understanding of their curriculum intent and how to ensure children make excellent progress. Staff share their knowledge of children with each other extremely effectively. This ensures all staff know the children incredibly well. They have a very effective assessment process in place to monitor children's learning. All staff, including flexible workers, use this to follow children's interests and support their learning even further.
• Children develop their mathematical skills by sorting pom-poms into numbered pots. Later, staff challenge the children to use tweezers to pick up the pom-poms. They put them into bottles with different-sized lids, making them harder as they move along. This also helps to develop children's fine motor skills.
• Staff's ability to differentiate their language to support individual children is outstanding. Staff use noises, such as 'brum, brum', to support very young babies when playing with the cars. For older babies, staff introduce the word 'car' and then carefully count the number of cars, 'one, two'. Staff continuously narrate activities, introducing new words and encouraging children's listening skills. In the garden, older children explore the shape puzzles. Staff skilfully ask questions to extend children's learning and give children time to think about their answer to develop their cognitive skills further. All children make rapid progress in their language development.
• The manager and her team have excellent partnerships with parents. Highly effective settling-in processes allow all children to develop their confidence. Parents are incredibly happy with the progress their children make while at the setting. Staff ensure effective partnerships with other settings where children attend. They share information to enhance children's learning even further. The setting promotes home learning effectively. For instance, children take sunflower seeds home to plant to join in the growing competition.
• The manager supports her staff team exceptionally well. She continuously offers advice and training to ensure the provision remains outstanding. Staff's well-being is a priority, and effective systems are in place to provide mentors to new staff. The manager has a clear vision for the future of the setting. She actively seeks new ways to educate children and embeds this across the setting.