South Hills Nursery Calne

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are welcomed into the nursery by kind and caring staff. They arrive happy and eager to access the range of activities on offer and enjoy spending time with their friends. Staff develop secure bonds with children from the outset. They provide children with an extremely safe and nurturing environment for them to learn and grow.

The manager is very committed to engage parents in children's learning and development. She talks passionately about her plans to promote children's continuity of learning at home. For example, staff have created specialist home learning packs, filled with resources and activities to support parents to be involved in their child's learning. In addition, the manager has also planned a variety of focused workshops for parents to be involved in, to promote positive outcomes for all children. The manager and staff work extremely closely with a range of services and professionals to meet children's individual needs. This enables staff to ensure all children receive the support they need to make very good progress. This includes those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. The manager uses additional funding, such as early years pupil premium, to effectively extend children's individual learning needs and interests. For example, staff have recently purchased a variety of craft resources to enhance children's creative skills.

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

• The manager and staff work hard to promote children's personal, social and emotional development. They teach children about the importance of sharing and being kind to one another. For example, staff plan small-group activities to support children to wait their turn and share resources. When children face challenges in their learning, staff are highly effective in supporting them to persevere.
• Staff continuously give children praise for their individual achievements, which supports children to become confident learners. For example, children show determination as try out their ideas and use a range of tools to break the ice to free the plastic animals. They show pride as they successfully free each animal.
• Due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, parents are unable to enter the setting. Staff utilise the outside space to share detailed information with parents about their child's day. This means daily discussions can take place with appropriate social distancing. Staff make good use of electronic communications to ensure information about their child's learning and development is shared effectively with parents. Parents describe the setting as 'brilliant.' They state that 'staff are excellent and they will always go out of their way to offer advice and support.'
• The management team ensures staff well-being is a high priority. Staff report that they receive high levels of support from the appointed well-being officer and manager. All staff regularly meet with the management team to discuss their emotional well-being. Staff say that they are very happy in their roles.
• Staff skilfully introduce new vocabulary into children's play. They provide children with new knowledge and information to extend their learning further. For example, during a bug hunt activity, staff support children to understand the difference between a magnifying glass and binoculars and how to use these during their play. Children show curiosity as they use the binoculars to look for different birds in the sky.
• Managers and staff have high expectations for all children in their care. On the whole, teaching is good and children are motivated to learn. However, there are times during planned activities when staff do not extend children's learning as much as possible.
• The management team are passionate in providing good quality experiences for the children who attend. They form strong relationships with the staff team. Managers provide staff with some professional development opportunities. However, these do not always target staff's understanding of how to adapt activities to support children's individual learning styles. As a result, staff working with the youngest children do not always provide them with the activities that sustain their interest and fully engage them in learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• make better use of planned activities to further enhance children's learning
• strengthen professional development for staff working with the youngest children to ensure that all children benefit from the very best learning experience.