Saffrons Park Nursery

Inclusion: Expected standard

Leaders focus their approach to inclusion on ensuring all children can be involved in all parts of nursery life, closing gaps and removing barriers to their learning. This clear vision supports daily practice and staff's interactions. Staff accurately identify individual learning, developmental or welfare concerns through observations, registration forms and daily discussions with parents and carers. They confidently follow procedures and discuss any emerging issues directly with the management team. Leaders implement a continuous cycle of checking, planning and reviewing support programmes, alongside parents to keep learning accessible. They work productively with families and external professionals to shape unique learning opportunities for children. For example, they work closely with speech and language therapists and paediatric medical specialists.

Leaders regularly review their use of targeted funding to successfully reduce the barriers that children face. Staff monitor individual progress to ensure all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those known to social services, make steady progress from their starting points. Leaders and staff cooperate effectively with outside agencies so that children get the help they need, for example to expand their speech capabilities. This generally helps children to manage routine activities smoothly and participate happily in group activities. However, not all agreed intervention strategies are followed consistently, which at times, impacts some children's understanding of routines and their developing communication skills.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Leaders generally maintain an accurate understanding of the quality of education across the nursery. They design a broad curriculum that covers all age- and stage-appropriate learning areas. This curriculum blends different educational approaches, focusing on nature and child-led play. For example, children access bowls of fruit with child-friendly cutting knives to prepare their own snacks.

Staff prioritise children's physical, personal, social and emotional development from the earliest age. They purposefully introduce mathematical language and numbers during everyday play. They use clear interactions to expand children's communication skills, for instance by modelling descriptive words like 'crunchy' and 'juicy' while exploring sensory tiles. Staff also ensure that the curriculum remains inclusive for all children regardless of barriers to their learning.

Leaders' direct, collaborative approach enables them to identify strengths and areas for ongoing improvement. For instance, leaders, alongside their staff team, effectively support staff who are working towards achieving an early years qualification to continually develop their teaching practice. This has a positive impact on the quality of teaching and delivery of the curriculum over time.

Staff use regular daily reviews and planning books to monitor what children know and can do. This helpful information allows them to track individual development. It ensures that, typically, staff successfully tailor daily activities to children's different starting points, needs and stages of development.

Achievement: Expected standard

Children make steady progress from their individual starting points and benefit from the nursery's broad curriculum. They successfully build their communication and language skills. For example, younger children look at picture books and repeat sounds. Older children revisit the same stories daily to expand their vocabulary. Most children build their self-confidence, focus their attention well during song times and delight in their success. Children who face barriers to learning generally achieve well and receive the right support to reach their personal goals.

Children build resilience and persist with tricky tasks. For example, children develop their concentration and hand-eye coordination while practising threading activities. Children learn to listen carefully to instructions and share space happily. They securely build the positive learning habits required for future success. Children are supported using guidance that helps them prepare for the next stage in their education.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard

Leaders establish a positive environment with commonly understood expectations for behaviour and attitudes. Children build warm and trusting relationships with staff. They look to them for reassurance. Staff provide positive role modelling by actively engaging with children during play-based activities. For example, they demonstrate good manners and praise children for sharing resources while rolling play dough. They offer calm reminders and explicit praise to reinforce positive choices. Children treat others with kindness, care and respect.

Staff carefully support children to learn to work together and get along with others. For instance, children show positive social skills by sharing space, while using tools to create outdoor artwork together. Leaders promote the importance of punctuality and regular attendance by monitoring attendance patterns. Although daily routines are generally well-managed, leaders are aware that not all routines are fully embedded and are actively working on them.

Staff consider children's individual needs, family circumstances and developmental stages carefully when supporting them to maintain expectations. For instance, staff use visual timelines and reminder cards to help children prepare for tidy-up times. This sensitive guidance helps children establish positive daily habits. It helps them navigate minor setbacks confidently and settle into nursery life smoothly.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Leaders prioritise children's health, welfare and safety as a major strength across the nursery. Staff operate as highly effective key teams around each child to establish secure, responsive attachments. More senior staff assume the main contact point, but all staff maintain a shared understanding of every child's needs. They use this knowledge to help children manage their feelings successfully. For example, staff get down to children's level to offer calm reassurance during play. This nurturing care ensures that all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities or medical conditions, maintain a secure sense of emotional wellbeing.

Care routines are rigorously adapted to meet individual needs. Staff collaborate closely with parents and carers to follow familiar home patterns for feeding, weaning and sleeping. The entire staff team follows updated statutory guidelines for safe-sleeping arrangements, meticulously. All staff follow safer eating and allergy requirements with extreme care. Staff prepare snacks in accordance with detailed care plans to meet individual children's needs.

Children learn to look after their bodies and understand how to keep themselves safe. Staff model and reinforce long-lasting healthy habits throughout the day. For instance, the youngest children use flannels while older children wash their hands independently at the sink. Children access fresh drinking water whenever they choose. Staff actively encourage children to take appropriate physical risks and meet challenges confidently. For example, children learn safety rules while practising large-muscle skills on indoor climbing equipment and low slides.

Leadership and governance: Expected standard

Leaders demonstrate a secure understanding of the nursery's community context. They manage a supportive and inclusive environment where they look to support staff's wellbeing and carefully balance daily workloads. Leaders remain approachable and involved on the ground daily, through an open-door policy. They provide relevant and regular training to help the team build their ongoing professional learning. All staff complete necessary child protection training to confidently maintain a secure, open culture of safeguarding where children's safety remains the priority.

Leaders maintain a clear action plan to guide their decisions and bring about steady improvements. They deeply value the importance of working with families to build shared partnerships. They work productively to ensure that all nursery choices focus on the best interests of children, including those who face specific barriers to learning. While leaders effectively identify the main priorities for the nursery, there are ongoing areas that they continue to support, such as raising the consistency of the quality of teaching practice.

Leaders are actively working to strengthen how staff implement their training during everyday routines. They utilise helpful digital systems to share children's progress updates with families. Leaders are proactively developing this work to ensure that all parents and carers are fully supported to connect with these updates and continue children's learning at home.