St Mary's Nursery & Preschool – Charlton Kings

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are dedicated to initiating a positive parent partnership to ensure children are supported in their everyday needs. There is an effective key-person system in place that allows children to build secure relationships with a trusted adult when they are away from their primary carers. Leaders and managers value the importance of creating a personable approach, where all staff get to know every child well to create a strong sense of belonging and familiarity within the setting.

The welcoming and friendly staff aim to adhere to children's interests, providing an environment that enables children to explore a wide variety of resources. Staff make effective use of the resources, providing learning opportunities to cover all areas of development, including imagination, messy play, construction and storytelling. There is ample outside space for children to move freely and explore the many learning opportunities on offer, such as gardening and searching for minibeasts through a magnifying glass.

Children are succeeding in their communication and language skills and they have an abundance of opportunities to create conversations with staff and peers. Staff ask open-ended questions that allow children time to think about their responses. Children are provided with rich communication opportunities to discuss and manage their feelings and behaviour which assimilates significant events happening in their life. Children who speak English as an additional language are supported well. For example, all children have involvement in the use of communication cards, creating and inclusive environment.

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

• Staff drive the children to be confident and independent individuals. The staff provide patience and encouragement, allowing opportunities for children to take responsibility for daily tasks, such as helping staff prepare for snack time. Children tidy away toys, wipe clean and dry tabletops, chop fruit and pour cereal and drinks. Staff also encourage name recognition by allowing a chosen child to set out name labels on the table. Children are capable of finding their own names and sitting in the appropriate chair for snack, all of which will prepare the children for school.
• Staff have implemented significant change to support the children in understanding the concept of time and changes in daily routines. For example staff have a timer in place to prepare children for when the time is approaching for a new activity or a change in daily movements, supporting children to manage behaviour appropriately.
• The settings ethos is to provide a child-centred approach to teaching, allowing children to direct their own learning through their own interests and preferences.
• The children enjoy the freedom to choose but are sometimes disengaged, therefore a more strategic planning process needs to be embedded to build on the knowledge children already have and to support the progression of further development.
• Staff have excellent skills in keeping children safe and caring for their well-being to ensure children feel happy and secure within the setting. However, children need more opportunities to be challenged and to take appropriate risks in their play to develop resilience and promote healthy bodies and minds.
• Children have excellent role models within the setting. As the team compassionately work together, they demonstrate essential characteristics that the children have clearly adopted. Children behave impeccably well and listen and follow instructions from adults. They treat their peers with kindness and respect, share among themselves and use polite language such as 'please' and 'thank you', particularly at snack time.
• Leaders and managers continually strive to improve practice, providing ample opportunities for staff to progress their professional knowledge through a variety of training courses.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• embed strategic and rational planning into the sequence of children's learning, to build on their existing knowledge and to support the progression of further development
• build upon children's resilience skills and personal development during play, by providing opportunities for children to safely take risks inside and outside of the setting.