South Hills City Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and keen to attend. They form close and trusting relationships with the staff, who support the children well as they move up through the playrooms. This helps children to feel safe, settled and secure. Babies benefit from a calm and nurturing environment in which staff meet their care routines well. Staff help children to learn positive values and how to behave well. They provide gentle and consistent guidance that helps children to share, take turns and play kindly. Staff provide good role models and help address any specific issues with children sensitively. For example, they read themed books, explore emotions and provide quiet areas for children to calm down and reflect.

Children benefit from a good range of learning opportunities and regular outings, such as forest school trips, to support their all-round development. They move freely between the indoor and outdoor play areas, making their own choices. Many children spend much of their playtime outside, where they explore, investigate and create their own ideas. For example, children work together to make 'potato and seaweed soup' and 'treats' in the play kitchen, laughing together at their creations. Staff encourage children's ideas and join in their imaginative play to keep them engaged.

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

• Staff work well with parents to find out what children know and can do from the start to help them plan their ongoing development. They know the children well and are clear about what they intend for them to learn next. Staff provide activities that support children's personal interests to help them achieve their learning goals. For example, children learn to use scissors safely to cut out pictures of tractors and read vehicle-themed books to support their hand coordination and literacy.
• Staff join in children's play with enthusiasm and provide challenges for some children to help build further on their learning. For example, they help children to learn about concepts such as floating and sinking, colours and shapes. However, on occasion, staff provide fewer challenges to some more developed children when they answer questions very easily, hindering their ability to build on their learning even further.
• Staff encourage babies' communication well as they verbalise their babbles, sounds and actions. They encourage children to talk about their ideas and home life and introduce new words to build their vocabulary. However, staff do not consistently help children to use their home languages in the setting to support their well-being and language development even further.
• Children develop good independence from a young age. They learn to manage tasks for themselves, such as serving their own food at meals and clearing away their plates and cutlery afterwards. They are interested and motivated to explore new activities and find out how things work. Babies explore sensory toys and puzzles with curiosity, and older children laugh as they learn actions to songs and experiment making dough and 'gloop'.
• Partnerships with parents are effective. Staff keep parents informed of their children's care routines and well-being each day and involve them in their children's development. Parents provide positive feedback regarding the care of their children.
• Staff help children to cultivate healthy lifestyles and good physical development. Babies practise walking in safe spaces, and toddlers use their bodies to join in action songs. Pre-school children thoroughly enjoy 'wake and shake' sessions at the start of the day to help them calm down and focus well. All children enjoy healthy meals and snacks, which they eat together at sociable mealtimes.
• The management team works closely with staff to evaluate and develop the quality of provision and make ongoing improvements. It ensures that all additional funding is used responsibly in order to have the most impact on children's learning. The management team has not notified Ofsted of a significant incident, as it is required to do. However, this has had no impact on the welfare of the children, and the team understands the notification requirements otherwise.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support all children who learn English as an additional language to use their home language in the setting
• provide more challenging experiences to extend the learning of more developed children even further.