Snettisham Bobtails

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and settled. Staff create a welcoming environment with a wide choice of stimulating play experiences for children to explore. Children quickly engage in their chosen activity and enjoy the playful interactions they share with staff. Children demonstrate positive attitudes to learning and are very creative. Staff ask thought-provoking questions to encourage children to extend their ideas. For example, when making volcanoes from dough, staff challenge children to think about what materials they could source to create the 'fire'. Children enthusiastically begin to explore the store cupboard for orange material to represent fire.

Children behave well. Staff are good role models. They use gentle reminders along with explanations about why rules are in place. This helps children to understand the behavioural expectations. Children learn to share and take turns. Staff introduce sand timers as a visual aid to support children as they learn to wait for their turn on the equipment.

Children enjoy spending a large amount of time playing and exploring outdoors. Staff provide children with a broad range of physical experiences. For instance, children develop coordination and agility as they design and use obstacle courses. Children learn to use tools and equipment. Staff demonstrate how to use pipettes to transfer water into various containers. They offer encouragement to children, which helps them to persist when faced with challenges. Children beam with pride in response to praise from staff as they master new skills.

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

• Staff know children well. They build strong relationships with their key children from the start and tailor the care and learning they provide to meet each child's individual needs. Key persons share their strategies with the staff team to help provide children with consistency in their learning and the support they need.
• Staff support children to understand their feelings and emotions. They encourage children to indicate how they are feeling. For example, children listen to various stories that introduce the concepts of feelings and emotions. Children match coloured stones to feelings, such as blue to represent feeling sad. This helps children to put a name to their emotions.
• Staff support children's communication and language skills well. They comment on children's actions and engage in meaningful conversations with children as they play. Staff speak clearly and role model good language. Consequently, all children develop good early communication and language skills.
• The working relationship with the host school and teachers is a key strength of the setting. Leaders and staff work incredibly hard to build strong relationships with the host school. Staff incorporate some of the school's routines and activities into their curriculum. This helps children to be well prepared for the move to school and supports a seamless transition into the Reception class.
• Children carry out some tasks without adult support. For example, they are encouraged to wash their hands before eating and pour their drinks during snack time. However, there are times when staff do not encourage children to do tasks for themselves, such as pulling up their trousers after using the potty. This means that children's independence is not consistently increased.
• Partnerships with parents are highly valued. Leaders ensure there are opportunities for parents to feel involved in their children's learning. For example, the setting hosts a stay-and-play session to enable parents to observe the learning environment first hand. In addition, they share ideas for promoting their children's learning at home. Parents are happy with the care and support provided at the setting. They comment on the excellent progress their children make.
• Leaders value the staff team and ensure its well-being is a priority. Staff are offered training to develop and improve their professional practice and knowledge. Individual training is cascaded to the staff team during staff meetings to ensure everyone keeps their knowledge and skills up to date. Staff receive regular supervision and leaders perform peer observations. However, staff coaching is not yet sufficient to enable staff to identify areas to improve their practice and share their knowledge and skills with each other.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• establish effective coaching methods that support staff to raise the quality of their teaching to a consistently high standard
• develop staff interactions to consistently increase children's independence.