Selsey Community Nursery Cio

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children receive a warm welcome from staff who skilfully support children to separate from their parents upon arrival. Parents and staff exchange relevant information to meet children's ever-changing needs. This enables children to settle well and be ready for their day of play and learning. Children learn to be kind and to help their friends. For example, toddlers support each other when struggling with a task such as opening their water bottle. This shows good friendships and awareness of the needs of others. Children wake up from their sleep and staff provide cuddles and support. This helps them to have the time they need to be ready to decide where they would like to play.

Children demonstrate good imaginative skills. Older children relish setting out a picnic with staff, and babies enjoy playing with toy figures. Staff enhance this play by talking about family members. The new managers fully understand how to provide an effective curriculum that is ambitious for all children. This includes those learning English as an additional language and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They support staff to devise suitable systems for observing and assessing children's learning. This enables staff to plan effectively for what children need to learn next to aid their development.

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

• The new managers have completed a full overhaul of the nursery provision since the last inspection. They have effectively targeted immediate aspects for improvement and use ongoing action plans to assess further development. This has enabled them to quickly improve the quality of the provision.
• Managers understand the ways in which to assess and enable staff to reflect on their practice. They use observations of staff in action to inform discussions during individual meetings and appraisals. This improves staff's knowledge and skills and subsequently enables good outcomes for children.
• Staff know their key children's levels of development and the plans for what they need to learn next. They share these with the staff team so that the team can offer effective support to children during their interactions with them. This enables children to gain the skills and knowledge they need to learn next.
• Pre-school-age children develop a secure understanding of shapes and size. They work together and use photos of architecture from around the world to replicate these. They talk with staff about the items they need to erect their building and explore mathematical concepts.
• Children thoroughly enjoy splashing in puddles. They squeal with delight as they walk or jump through the puddle. This builds children's understanding of weather conditions while enhancing their large-muscle development.
• Children show their awareness of safety and use their ability to weave around each other while on their bikes and trikes in the garden. They demonstrate that they can use their feet to propel themselves forwards. They can also balance their body weight as they use the bikes.
• Staff plan activities and experiences that they base on what children need to learn next and their interests. However, they do not always extend this to the outdoor area to offer even more purposeful learning to enhance the curriculum.
• Staff respond well to babies' early communications. Babies babble and staff talk back to them, which builds on their understanding of the flow of conversations. This strengthens relationships while enhancing language development.
• Children understand the routines of the day. However, staff do not always use differing methods to enhance children's understanding of what is happening next. Some staff do not give children explanations as to the consequences of their behaviours. This does not enhance children's understanding of managing their behaviour and the impact on others.
• Staff build a good rapport with parents who state that relationships and communication have greatly improved since the last inspection. Parents report that they can see the efforts put in by the new managers and staff team and this has had an effective impact on children. Staff share information about what children need to learn next.
• Babies enjoy their creative play experiences. They show increasing skills, using the spoons to scoop rice into differing pots. Staff plan activities such as these in support of what babies need to learn next, this being feeding themselves. This shows effective planning to help children develop and embed skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the planning of outdoor experiences for children to make sure that they are planned and purposeful
• enhance staff's awareness of differing strategies to support children's awareness of managing their own behaviour.