Spring Cedars

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the nursery confidently and happily, eager to see what resources and activities staff have set out for them. They are welcomed warmly by the friendly staff team, which helps the children to settle quickly. Staff give children their full attention and work hard to promote their personal and emotional development in particular. Children are confident and feel emotionally secure in staff's care. The older children talk about their feelings and emotions during group times, such as explaining why they feel happy or worried. Staff help children to learn the expectations for their behaviour. Children recall the rules and remind their friends of them throughout the day, such as telling each other what the behaviour cards mean when staff hold them up.

Leaders and staff know the children well and plan a broad and ambitious curriculum to build on what the children know and can do. Staff are clear about what they want children to learn next and provide good support to meet their individual needs. Staff identify when children may require additional help swiftly and work closely with parents and other professionals to provide a consistent and tailored approach for these children. All children, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress and develop a positive attitude to learning.

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

• Leaders and staff are committed to providing high-quality care and education for all children. Leaders provide effective support and coaching for staff to strengthen their knowledge and skills. As a result of recent training, staff working with the pre-school children have recently begun to use signing to support children's communication and language. This is already having a positive impact on children's confidence to express their needs and to communicate with each other.
• Overall, staff use appropriate strategies to support children's communication and language development. They repeat clear and simple language, pause to encourage children to join in with well-known nursery rhymes and model a broad vocabulary. For example, they teach children what courgettes are and use mathematical language, such as 'half'. At times, although staff sit with the children as they play, learn and eat, they do not engage them in discussions, to extend their language development further.
• Staff place a strong emphasis on supporting children to be independent from a young age. Babies are encouraged to wipe their own nose and pre-school children put on their coat and boots and use cutlery ably at mealtimes. Children are confident to manage their care needs by themselves and are keen to help staff, such as when setting the table at mealtimes.
• Parents speak very highly of the nursery. They talk about the nutritious home-cooked lunches, the regular updates they receive about their children's learning and development and the close relationships that staff form with the children. On occasion, staff do not find out about children's experiences at home in as much detail as they could, to enable them to work more closely with the parents to promote even greater consistency in children's care and learning.
• Staff form sensitive, respectful and caring relationships with the children. For example, they ask babies if they can wipe their hands and face after mealtimes and repeat actions playfully if they make the babies giggle. Staff initiate games with them, such as rolling balls back and forward to them, which helps to develop the babies' understanding of social interactions.
• Staff have clear intentions for children's learning. Staff working with the babies provide activities that strengthen their legs and core strength, to help them learn to stand and take their first steps. Pre-school children learn to count, recognise numbers and letters, and build their coordination and hand strength such as when peeling, grating and chopping vegetables.
• Staff kindly reassure children that they can change their clothes when they have finished playing, so it does not matter if they get dirty. This gives children the confidence to play, learn and explore freely using their senses. They paint with their hands, transport rice into containers and laugh when they fall over in the mud in the garden.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's interactions with children to support and encourage the children to speak more and extend their communication and language development further
• develop partnerships with parents even further, to exchange more detailed information about children's routines and experiences at home, to enable greater consistency in their care and learning.