Snapdragons Nursery and Out of School Club Corsham

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive excited for their day at nursery. Staff welcome children and their families with kindness, helping to ensure parents leave knowing their children are well supported. Children seek familiar activities and engage with purpose. Staff support children's learning and provide reassurance where needed. Children settle well and are very confident in the nursery environment.

The provider and staff team construct and deliver a highly-inclusive, broad and meaningful curriculum for all children that attend. They strive for children to be confident communicators, ready for their next stage of learning. Staff use various strategies to enhance communication at all stages of development. For example, staff introduce babies to sing and sign sessions, enabling them to communicate with sign, and older children use communication boards to aid interactions and express their needs. Staff also provide children with opportunities to talk and support their emotional well-being in 'sunshine circle' group sessions. Children learn the value of communication, are confident to express themselves and share how they feel from an early age.

Behaviour across the nursery is very good. Staff are excellent role models for children. They speak to them and one another with kindness and respect. Children build strong relationships with their peers and staff. They seek staff for interactions and invite them into their play. For example, babies watch staff move around the room and enjoy cuddles with them. Older children ask staff to join them on a 'pirate ship' adventure to 'pirate island'. Staff engage with enthusiasm and listen intently to the narrative the children create.

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

• The newly appointed, passionate leaders provide a calm, supportive and positive environment for both staff and children. They are mindful of the pressures of workload and personal circumstances and are supportive and responsive to staff needs. Staff have various training opportunities tailored to their learning needs and the needs of the children. Most recently, staff have attended behaviour training. They use what they have learned to support children who are ready for their next stage and provide them with sufficient challenge in their final weeks at the nursery.
• The key-person system is well established throughout the nursery. All key persons know their children well. They work closely with parents and external agencies to ensure consistency in care and learning. Staff quickly identify any gaps in learning and put strategies in place to help close these. Staff know what they want children to learn and create opportunities to specifically cater for children's individual needs. Children make good progress from their starting points.
• Staff create exciting opportunities to enhance children's development. In the forest school garden, staff teach young children how to be safe when they use tools such as mallets to create patterns on bandanas. However, staff do not always give children time to think and respond or further extend learning. For example, staff engage toddlers in a painting activity, use lots of language to talk about what is happening and question children but do not give them time to identify colours or shapes and process what is happening to the paint as they mix it. Additionally, when staff read a story to older children, children share their own experiences. However, staff do not always see this as an opportunity to extend learning and get children thinking even further.
• The provider and staff team create good partnerships with parents from the moment their children start. There is an extensive settling process to help ensure children and parents have a positive start to nursery life. Parents are invited into the nursery to celebrate special events, which are relevant to families, like Armed Forces Day. Parents share their praise for the nursery. They say their children receive very good support, staff are friendly and professional and their children love to attend.
• Staff use routine tasks to develop children's independence. Older children develop their self-help skills when they lay the table for lunches and pour out drinks. However, at times, young children wait for long periods between transitions and staff do not always reinforce expectations. For example, staff attempt to read babies a story while they wait for sleep time, however, babies loose interest and leave the activity as the length of time is too long. Furthermore, when older children join a language activity, staff ask children who have toys to put them behind them for the activity. However, this is not reinforced. Children become distracted by toys, wander the playroom and do not benefit from the learning on offer.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve the organisation of transitions between routine activities to reduce waiting times and keep children engaged, ensuring staff make children aware of the expectations
• support staff to consistently extend learning by exploring the experiences children share, incorporating these into activities and giving children time to think and respond.