Scallywags Child Care Centre

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide a warm and welcoming environment where children arrive happy and settle quickly. The curriculum is broad and ambitious, based on children's interests and next steps in learning. As a result, children are interested and engaged. Children who prefer to learn outdoors have many opportunities to play in the well-planned gardens. They use bats and balls to develop their hand-eye coordination and ride on scooters and bicycles. They enjoy water and sand play, learning about volume and measurement as they fill and empty containers of different sizes.

Children behave well and have a positive attitude to learning. Children share, close relationships with the staff, who get to know them well. This helps to build strong attachments and ensures that children feel safe and secure. Babies confidently explore the environment, for example, moving train carriages around a track. Toddlers enjoy playing in the mud kitchen, mixing mud, leaves and flowers using their senses to explore. Older children engage well with one another and staff as they try out their ideas for moving around outside.

Partnerships with parents are strong. Parents comment that staff go above and beyond to support their family. They are kept well informed about their child's progress and appreciate the ideas to extend their child's learning at home.

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

• Staff support older children well to develop their communication and language skills. They read stories and engage children successfully in conversation about their play ideas. Staff sound out letters and initial sounds, while encouraging children to recognise letters in the environment.
• Children use their imagination well. They use trowels and pretend cement to build towers with bricks. Staff encourage children to use their senses and describe what the mixture feels like. Children use words such as 'sticky' and 'gloopy', demonstrating a wide vocabulary.
• Staff use praise and encouragement successfully to build children's self-esteem. As a result, children are well motivated to learn, confident and independent. Children's behaviour is excellent. Staff act as good role models, and children follow their lead. Consequently , there is a calm and harmonious atmosphere throughout the nursery, which is conductive to lots of learning. Children show a strong understanding of right from wrong, and older children are exceptionally patient. For example, they serve themselves lunch and wait until every child is ready to start before eating their meal.
• Staff know the children well. They know what they can do and what they want them to learn next. They plan a broad range of learning experiences to support children's development and monitor and assess this effectively. This enables staff to quickly address any gaps in children's development when necessary. As a result, all children make good progress from their individual starting points.
• Babies practise making sounds and speaking. They have opportunities for repetition as they join-in with action songs and rhymes and eagerly wait to see 'what's in the bag?' However, at times, staff are busy with tidying away or other routine chores and are not available to support children in developing their speech and language consistently.
• Toddlers enjoy manipulating and rolling out play dough and cut out Christmas tree shapes. They use their imagination well as they pretend to bake these in an oven and develop good social skills as they share and take turns. However, staff do not always encourage children to count and use numbers in their play to further enhance their mathematical knowledge.
• Staff support children to develop a good understanding of the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Children benefit from lots of physical exercise and fresh air. They enjoy a broad and varied diet provided by the on-site cook. They engage in conversation with staff who extend their knowledge about healthy eating and good oral health.
• The provider supports staff to extend their skills. They encourage them to attend training that enhances their knowledge and interactions with children. Consequently, this has enhanced the provision for all children to incorporate ideas, such as 'the attention bucket', to develop children's listening and understanding.
• The provider and the staff are reflective of their practice and are constantly looking at what is going well and what needs to be improved to benefit the children and their families. They place a strong emphasis on staff's well-being. As a result, staff feel well supported and the nursery is a happy place to be. This has a positive impact on children's well-being and learning outcomes.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure that staff in the nursery room deploy themselves effectively, particularly at transition times, so that they are available to support children in their chosen activities
• provide more opportunities for toddlers to hear and use number in their play to further support their understanding.