Springboard Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

This family-focused nursery is filled with fun and laughter. Children bound through the gate with big smiles on arrival, waving books that they have brought to share with their friends. This shows their confidence and eagerness to play and learn. Staff provide a safe, warm and welcoming environment, which they plan carefully to support children's learning. They encourage babies to show early imaginative skills. Babies pretend to feed vegetables to staff with a spoon and say 'yum'. They giggle while trying to catch bubbles. Older children search for bugs and dig for worms, checking off the creatures they find on a list. Staff encourage children to learn to take care of plants, exploring the smells as they water herbs and lavender.

Staff plan a broad and balanced curriculum that supports all children. Staff join in with children's play, skilfully helping them to learn and remember more. Children recall what they have learned, looking back at pictures they have made linked to a favourite story. Staff's enthusiasm and encouragement helps children to concentrate during activities. This contributes to children's positive attitudes to learning. For example, children spend a long time exploring texture, shape and capacity while making 'sunshine cakes' from mud, flowers and water.

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

• Staff provide a balance of direct teaching and opportunities for children to play and explore freely. This helps children to successfully build on what they already know and can do. Staff link planned activities to children's interests, which helps to ignite their curiosity. However, occasionally, staff do not recognise and support children who are reluctant to engage in some activities.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported particularly well. Staff recognise and celebrate the significance of every achievement, for example, when children develop the confidence to hold a friend's hand or to step over a crack in the pavement. Effective partnerships with parents and other professionals help children to make the best possible progress.
• Staff provide plenty of opportunities for children to see and hear words. For example, they record scores on a chalkboard during a target-practice game, spelling out the names so that children can hear the letter sounds. Children make excellent attempts at writing when they add their name to a picture. They learn the initial sounds in their name during group times. This prepares them very well for learning to read.
• Parents describe staff as 'awesome' and appreciate the detailed information they receive about their children's learning through an electronic app. They enjoy taking part in family learning sessions, where staff help them with ways to further support their children's learning and enhance their experiences at home.
• Children develop early friendships. They take a friend by the hand and ask, 'Can I join you?' Staff help them to share their feelings, for example, when they talk about starting school. However, staff are sometimes too quick to resolve conflicts for children. They do not always support children to consider how their actions might affect others or to find their own solutions to problems that arise during play.
• Staff's nurturing and caring approach contributes to the warm, trusting relationships that they form with all children. This helps children to develop high self-esteem and a strong sense of security. Staff use detailed care plans to ensure that children's individual needs are met precisely. Children benefit from consistent encouragement and praise. They glow with pride when they receive a sticker for being the 'best tidier'.
• Staff feel well supported and their morale is high. They benefit from one-to-one sessions with the manager and access to professional development opportunities that enhance their good teaching. For example, some staff attend a training course to help them to support children's developing language and communication skills even more effectively.
• At the time of the inspection, the provider had not provided Ofsted with the full details of a change to the nominated individual. The provider took immediate action to rectify this. This does not impact on the safety and well-being of children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• encourage reluctant children to engage more consistently in activities
• support older children to learn how to resolve their own conflicts that arise during their play.