Spring – St Bart's House

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children and their families are greeted with smiles by kind and caring staff who know them well. This helps children to feel secure. Children enter eagerly, keen to explore the activities set up for them and to play with their friends. Managers and staff work hard to create engaging learning environments where children's needs and interests are prioritised. Children spend a long time exploring play dough, learning how to roll it in different ways with tools. They sustain concentration, making different shapes and proudly sharing these with staff, who respond with warmth and praise. This supports children's emotional well-being successfully.

Staff provide children with activities that motivate and interest them. Children delight in making shaving foam 'cakes', which they share with their friends. They have in-depth conversations with staff about how to 'ice' them. This develops children's imagination and creativity skills. Staff promote children's language skills well. They are good role models, extending children's understanding of new words. Children enjoy learning about the 'crest' of a mountain and use vocabulary such as 'shimmering' when describing fish in the ocean. Children behave well. They demonstrate positive attitudes to learning, showing curiosity when learning about birds in the environment and talking about caring for the natural world. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress.

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

• Managers are passionate and proactive. They have used advice and guidance from the local authority to help them significantly improve practice and provision since the last inspection. They have exciting plans to enhance what they offer. They are well supported by the wider organisation. Staff speak highly of the support and training they are offered. This helps to ensure that staff are confident to fulfil their roles.
• Children benefit from staff who promote a love of books. Staff enthusiastically read to children, fostering children's excitement. Children delight in choosing books from the lending library. From a young age, children join in with stories, songs and rhymes, successfully supporting their literacy skills.
• Staff support children's physical development effectively. Older children learn how to use scissors safely when making masks, proudly showing staff. Other children become engrossed in fixing tracks for their cars. Younger children ride bikes and use chalks outside, making marks. This develops their movement skills and confidence.
• Staff promote children's positive behaviour, for example by encouraging them to take turns. When chatting about how pumpkins are grown, children listen to their friends. At lunchtime, children offer each other drinks and share out cutlery.
• However, at times, staff do not routinely explain to children the impact of their actions to further their understanding and help them develop positive friendships.
• Children benefit from opportunities to learn about their local community. Staff take children to visit elderly residents nearby, which helps develop their awareness of others. Children and their families are invited to local events to support their understanding of others and their local community. This promotes children's understanding and respect for others.
• Staff ensure that there are effective transition processes in place to help children settle. Children with SEND are provided with personalised plans to ensure that they access their full entitlement. Staff learn words in children's home languages to help them feel included. Children identify their friends when sharing family photo books. This helps children feel valued and welcomed.
• Children are provided with opportunities to develop their mathematical and problem-solving skills. Older children are challenged to work out how to make magnets attach. Other children spend a long time pouring water into different-sized cups for a tea party. Younger children throw and catch knitted balls, counting as they do it. This helps support their knowledge of numbers well.
• Staff encourage children to be independent. Children identify their own lunch cards and scrape their plates, using cutlery with skill. However, at times, staff do things for children they could attempt themselves, for example getting their own tissues and wiping their own noses. This does not fully support their developing personal hygiene skills.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Parents receive regular information about their children. Children make good progress in their confidence, social skills and language. Parents appreciate the support to help their children's learning at home. They speak highly of the wide range of meals the chefs prepare and say their children eat a range of foods now.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's skills in helping children to develop a greater understanding of the impact of their actions on others
• support staff to establish a more consistent approach to supporting young children's developing independence skills.