Serendipity Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Key persons for the individual children greet parents and children in the nursery foyer. They welcome the children in and ask how they are. This provides a good opportunity for parents to share any relevant information from home with their child's key person. Children wave goodbye to their parents and carers and are keen to start their nursery day. Key persons guide them to their rooms, encouraging children to find their photograph and name and place it on a peg of their choice. This gives children a good sense of belonging. Once in their rooms, children find their friends and quickly become engrossed in play.

Children behave well and show respect for each other. Staff help them to understand the nursery's 'golden rules' by gently reminding them to use their 'kind hands' and words. Children develop good levels of independence from a young age. Staff encourage them to make choices over their play and to help with some of the routine tasks, such as clearing up before lunch and serving their own meal. Staff have clear expectations for each child and help them to reach their full potential through well planned and interesting activities and resources.

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

• There is a strong management team in place, consisting of the manager and deputy who work closely with the company directors and managers from the sister settings. There are clearly defined roles to enable managers to fulfil their responsibilities effectively. The manager places great emphasis on supporting her staff team to help them to feel valued and respected.
• Parents spoken to and those who contribute towards the nursery feedback in written form, state that they are very happy with the way their children are cared for. They comment on how well the key persons know their children and the effective communication between them. This enables parents to feel very much involved in their child's learning.
• Staff and managers work well with other agencies to help to support all children and families. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language. All additional funding is put to very good use to provide appropriate resources to help all children to reach their full potential. For example, additional outdoor play equipment helps children to make good progress in their physical abilities and benefits those children who learn better in an outdoor environment.
• Babies benefit from being cared for by staff who know them really well. They enjoy comforting hugs when needed and are well supported to move safely around the baby room, accessing an interesting selection of age-appropriate toys and resources. Staff use effective strategies to enhance babies' language skills and help them to begin using words to communicate.
• Children enjoy making use of the nursery garden, where they manoeuvre up and down the slopes. They help to plant and tend the garden areas. Children develop good physical skills using the physical play equipment, enabling them to confidently climb, balance and explore.
• Managers and staff are in the process of introducing a new curriculum, which the manager hopes will further strengthen the already effective learning paths for individual children. The nursery curriculum already places good emphasis on developing strong and independent children. Staff currently use their planning to build on children's prior experiences and knowledge.
• Staff working with older children encourage them to develop their communication and language skills through a range of strategies, including asking children questions to test their thinking. On occasions, in their eagerness to support children's play, staff do not give them enough time to respond to questions or to express their ideas.
• Staff speak highly of the management structure and comment that they are well supported through effective supervision and coaching. They are able to access a range of online training to help them to further enhance their knowledge. However, the management team have not fully established ways to help staff deepen their knowledge of how to deliver the curriculum content, that enriches the learning experiences of children to a high level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• coach staff in strengthening their questioning techniques, to encourage all children to express their thoughts and ideas and extend their learning
• build on the already good practice and seek further ways to help all staff deepen their knowledge of how to deliver the curriculum content.