Roxmead Nursery St Pauls

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff warmly welcome children as they arrive and help them to settle in and get busy exploring the environment. The happy, relaxed atmosphere helps children to settle quickly. When children require emotional support, staff provide nurturing cuddles which calm and soothe them.

There is an ambitious curriculum in place which has a particular focus on developing children's independence skills and their communication. Staff carefully plan experiences in the setting based on children's interests. They support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) extremely well. All children show high levels of engagement. For instance, staff ignite younger children's imaginations and curiosity as they get involved in mixing oil, water and flour together to make dough. With the help of the staff, who recall the events from the story of 'The Enormous Turnip', they roll and mould dough balls to represent the turnips in the story. This helps children to develop new knowledge and understanding and use this to make connections in their play.

Staff are good role models. They have taken care to teach all children positive behaviours and routines. They help children to build on these skills as they grow and move through each room. This eventually supports older children to listen carefully and benefit from the high-quality teaching, for instance during circle times. Children are prepared well for the transition on to school.

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

• The curriculum is carefully planned and sequenced. For instance, staff introduce core nursery rhymes and stories to support children's early language skills. They revisit these frequently as children move through the setting, which increases children's confidence in using and understanding language. Staff gradually introduce new rhymes and stories, expanding children's breadth of vocabulary.
• Staff teach communication and language skills explicitly. For example, children with SEND have one-to-one and small-group sessions to help them build on their vocabulary and practise their speaking skills. Older children practise their listening skills as they learn to use technology, for example as they learn how to get headphones on and listen to stories.
• Children show a positive attitude to their learning. For example, older children attempt to use safety knives to cut Brussels sprouts and carrots; they show determination as they carefully cut vegetables into small pieces. However, staff do not use this opportunity to consistently use mathematical language and develop concepts, such as learning about counting, shape, size or measure, to extend children's skills further.
• Staff plan the outdoor environment well to support older children in their physical development. Children are highly engaged as they practise climbing large equipment and balancing on different-sized stepping stones and beams. Children improve their hand strength and control, such as when filling up water from the water butt to water the tomato plants they are growing.
• The curriculum for literacy is well sequenced throughout the nursery. Staff plan activities to help develop children's creativity and enjoyment for reading from an early age. For example, children recall the sequence of the story about 'The Enormous Turnip'. Children colour in pictures of characters and cut them out and glue them in order of events. Children are eager to take their turn to speak and share their ideas of what will happen next. In addition, parents borrow books from the nursery to share with children at home to support their communication, language and literacy skills.
• Children benefit from the nursery's strong links to external agencies. Staff support parents to seek advice from other professionals. The special educational needs coordinator and key persons are working closely with parents and the schools that children will be moving on to. This ensures that there is a consistent approach to supporting all children's needs.
• Staff enjoy working in this setting. The manager uses supervision sessions to ensure that staff are supported in their role and that any additional support they require is put in place. Although staff are provided with an online training platform and their training requests are responded to, the manager does not target specific training for all staff to develop their teaching skills even further.
• Partnerships with parents are a key strength of the setting. Staff develop very good relationships with parents. Parents receive regular updates about their children's achievements. Key staff work closely with parents to support and extend children's learning at home. Parents describe the staff as 'amazing' and that their children are treated 'as if they were part of the family'.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider ways to further incorporate mathematical language in everyday play, for older children, so that they develop a better understanding of size, counting and shapes and measure
• monitor staff training and professional development opportunities, to focus more precisely on helping all staff broaden their opportunities to access more training, to raise the quality of their practice further.