South Bedfont Playgroup

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and emotionally secure in this nurturing environment. Children engage in many activities, both indoors and outdoors. They have many opportunities to explore their natural environment. For example, through playing in the mud kitchen, using water pumps, digging for worms and balancing and climbing on tyres.

The key-person system is highly effective. Staff know the children well and have high expectations. They understand children's interests and plan activities to further support them in their learning. For example, during a bug hunt activity, staff extended children's communication and language skills to support them in finding bugs in the garden. Children collected and investigated worms for their wormery, furthering their knowledge and understanding of the world.

Children behave well and show a positive attitude to their learning. Staff work effectively as a team to enhance learning opportunities for children and to ensure that all children make good progress. Children engage in a range of well-planned activities that promote their communication and language skills through imaginary play. Children use recipe books to role play making cakes, and they play doctors and nurses, dressing up and examining patients using stethoscopes.

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

• Staff share stories and sing songs to support children's language development. When sharing the story of 'Oh dear, no eggs here', staff use farmyard animal props, allow children time to listen, pause for children to join in, and ask questions to check children's understanding. Children turn pages, lift flaps and show high levels of curiosity and engagement.
• Children engage in a range of activities to support their fine-motor development. They use large chalks to mark make, chop vegetables in the outdoor kitchen and use the designated writing area to find their name and practise copying letters.
• Children show good physical and mathematical development as they role play on the 'construction site'. They count large wooden blocks, transport them and arrange them into towers. Children persevere when things are tricky, showing good development in their problem-solving skills.
• Staff make purposeful interactions with children during activities, model language and extend children's vocabulary as they play. However, staff do not consistently model, explain and demonstrate what they are intending to teach children to embed children's understanding and strengthen their vocabulary. For example, during a play-dough activity, staff missed opportunities to model the actions for cutting, rolling and squeezing to support children's understanding of these words.
• Staff model care practices well. For example, washing hands before and after lunch and after messy-play activities. Staff sit and have lunch with children, making it a social experience and providing opportunities to engage in conversations about healthy food choices. Children learn to pour water from a jug, and staff model how to use cutlery appropriately. This supports children to be independent.
• The nursery makes excellent use of external agencies to ensure all children's needs are met, in particular children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who speak English as an additional language. Targeted one-to-one support and group interventions focus on children's specific needs. Staff use 'now and next' boards and visual cues to ensure all children understand nursery routines and can fully access all areas of their learning environment.
• The manager has high expectations of staff. She identifies where staff need support and takes appropriate action to address this by providing specific training opportunities. Staff are mentored well and have regular supervision meetings allowing them to reflect on their practice, discuss observations of children and plan activities for children's next steps.
• Parents feel very supported by the nursery and feel part of their children's learning journey. They are given ideas on how to help their children at home. They delight as they talk of the progress their children have made during their time at the setting. In particular, they notice their children express an increased enjoyment in sharing books and listening to stories at home. Parents say their children are happy and enjoy coming to nursery, which is both comforting and reassuring for them.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure all staff model, explain and demonstrate when introducing new vocabulary to fully embed children's understanding and strengthen their language skills.