Sinclair House School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and confident in this well-organised, caring nursery. Staff take great care to ensure that children settle well. They maintain babies' home care routines to keep things familiar and to help them feel secure. Staff value each child and have high expectations of them. Children have close and warm relationships with staff who interact with them in positive ways.

The curriculum is balanced and comprehensive. This helps children to make good progress, and they learn useful skills in preparation for school. Children gain good physical skills. Babies begin to learn to climb up low-level platforms and crawl through tunnels. Older children enjoy jumping through hoops, they balance and steer wheeled toys and climb across frames. Children gain good understanding of the world. Staff teach them about giant pandas, red foxes and other animals that live in different places in the world. They take children outdoors for regular sessions, where they learn about nature, such as insects, plants and trees. Children develop good mathematical skills. Staff sing number rhymes and songs, and children have good counting skills. They have secure understanding of size and weight and can sort and put objects into groups. Children learn to share and to take turns well.

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

• Children gain good creative skills. Babies happily explore the texture of oats as they scoop and pour it into containers. Children enjoy using different resources, such as tissue paper, patterned material and glue to make their own collage work. They draw and paint using chalk, paint, crayons and other tools.
• Children learn to do things for themselves. Staff teach children how to put on their coats and shoes, and children tidy away resources when they have finished using them. Babies learn to feed themselves.
• Staff support children's communication, language and literacy skills successfully. They engage babies well at circle time by singing songs in English and Italian, and babies learn new words in both languages. Staff have group time where they talk to children about their interests, the weather, sing songs and read stories to support their communication, language and literacy skills very effectively.
• Children behave well. Staff praise children and share their expectations of behaviour with them. They are fair and consistent in the way they manage children's behaviour.
• Children gain good understanding about difference. Staff read books that have characters from different racial and cultural backgrounds. They teach children about different countries and continents, their inhabitants and traditions.
• Children act in safe ways. They put on sun cream and sun hats before they go outdoors in hot weather. Children walk sensibly to reduce the risk of accidents. Staff teach children how to act with care and caution when on outings and how to cross the road safely.
• The manager provides good levels of support to staff. She meets with them regularly to discuss work performance and offers help where needed. The manager ensures that staff keep their skills and knowledge up to date by attending regular training. For instance, staff attended a course on forest school training, which led to more enriching experiences for children. The manager supports and motivates staff, for instance, by celebrating staff who have done excellent work.
• The manager evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the nursery regularly. She sets goals for improvement. For instance, the manager plans to provide freshly made meals for children by building a kitchen in the nursery.
• Staff work effectively with parents. They provide regular updates on children's progress in flexible ways, such as secure electronic communication and daily verbal feedback. Staff give parents ideas on home activities to support children's learning.
• The manager ensures that children have healthy routines. Nutritious meals are provided by an external caterer, which meets their special dietary needs, and children have daily physical challenges. Staff support children's oral hygiene awareness well. For example, staff who work with children aged two to three years of age develop highly creative activities to demonstrate how plaque affects teeth.
• Staff implement care routines for children. However, there are times when staff take children away from activities they are engaged in, which interrupts their learning.
• Staff have started to teach children about some emotions. However, they can develop their resources to support children's understanding of themselves and others further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review routines to enable children to fully engage in their learning without disruption
• develop children's understanding of different emotions to further their understanding of themselves and others.