Square One Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children play in a welcoming and inclusive environment. They access a wide range of toys and resources, which keep them motivated to play. For example, children enjoy exploring the various dressing-up clothes, shoes and hats in the role-play area. They also become deeply involved as they take 'orders' for their café and explore the value of money during play. Children develop good levels of creativity and imagination. Being together with different age groups has a positive impact on children. For instance, it enables them to develop their language and social skills well. Children enjoy listening to stories. They take delight in joining in with repeated refrains and making age-appropriate comments.

Children have positive attitudes to learning. They respond well to staff's high expectations. Children develop a strong range of physical skills. For example, they are confident to run, balance and use ride-on toys, while negotiating challenges safely. Children are happy and feel secure at this nursery. They form close attachments with staff, supporting their emotional well-being. Children receive gentle reminders from staff to help them to behave well. They gain the necessary knowledge and skills that they need to progress onto the next stage of their education.

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

• Square One Nursery School continues to provide children with good-quality education and care. This is partly because the manager is passionate about her work and has a strong commitment to continuous improvement. She gathers feedback from parents, staff and other professionals to help evaluate practice effectively. Since the last inspection, the manager has explored how to use words in children's home languages to foster a stronger connection to their community and culture.
• Staff make precise use of observations and assessments to identify and address gaps in children's learning quickly, such as where they have speech delay. As a result, children, including those who speak English as an additional language, make good progress from their starting points.
• Staff plan a broad and balanced curriculum to provide children with wider learning experiences. They offer extra-curricular activities, such as gymnastics and music sessions, which complement children's all-round learning. This term, staff are working to promote older children's mathematical skills, in readiness for school. They incorporate mathematics into activities to build on children's knowledge of numbers, shapes and sizes. As a result, children develop and extend their counting and problem-solving skills.
• Staff are happy and feel well supported in their work with the children. They have recently refreshed their knowledge of how to manage children's behaviour more effectively. This has had a positive impact on children's emotional well-being. The manager acknowledges that individual staff will benefit from wider training in order to raise the quality of education to the highest level.
• Children move between the age-appropriate and interesting activities confidently. However, some daily routines are not planned well enough, such as transitions between activities and tasks. This means that, sometimes, children's ideas and interests are not supported as effectively as possible.
• Staff teach children about respect, kindness and good manners. For example, at mealtimes, staff use polite words, such as 'please', 'thank you' and 'excuse me'. As a result, children's behaviour is good. Staff also encourage children to do as many manageable tasks as possible for themselves. This supports children's increasing independence skills.
• Children learn basic words and phrases in other languages, such as French and Spanish. They enjoy counting and recalling what they have learned. For instance, children remember how to say 'hello' in both languages. This raises their awareness of similarities and differences between people.
• Partnership with parents is good. Staff involve parents in the process of assessing their children's learning from the beginning. They keep parents fully informed about their children's activities and experiences to ensure a consistent approach. Parents speak highly of the manager and staff. They praise staff's caring and nurturing approach, which has a positive impact on their children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide individual staff with focused professional development and carefully reflect on the impact that training has on the quality of education
• manage the daily routines more effectively to fully support children's ideas and interests.