St. Michael's Nurture Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at this nursery for two- and three-year-olds extremely excited. They do not hesitate to immediately engage in the fantastic range of activities the staff provide. The attractive display of activities immediately captures the children's interests, and their learning begins. Children's behaviour is outstanding and their attitude to learning is extremely positive.

Children are cared for by a consistent staff team, who are truly passionate about the job they do. Children are assigned a key person on entry. They are superbly supported to settle by their key person, who provides a gentle and caring approach tailored towards their individual needs. Children share extremely warm relationships with all the staff who care for them, they confidently express their needs in a variety of ways.

Children readily immerse themselves in their learning and make frequent choices and decisions about what and who they want to play with. They move between the extremely well-planned indoor and outdoor areas, which superbly promotes the seven areas of learning. Children access highly stimulating activities throughout the sessions, that inspire and successfully provoke their natural curiosity to learn.

Children have exciting opportunities to use all of their senses through an excellent range of exploratory play. They delight in filling large buckets with water from the tap on a rainwater barrel. Children are highly successful in working together, they carry and pour water, creating large puddles that they have fun jumping and splashing in. Children explore natural materials, such as wood and bales of hay, in the outdoor area, as they role play and act out the characters from a story about three little pigs.

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

• The senior management team have extremely high expectations of themselves and all levels of their team. Staff receive excellent support to progress in their professional development in relation to their starting points. Their well-being is given very high priority. Staff describe the support they receive from the management team as 'extremely nurturing' and say that 'outcomes for the staff who work here are regarded as equally important as the outcomes for the children we care for'.
• The management team continually identify and focus on what can be improved. The nursery's improvement plans are highly effective. They fully include revisions to legislation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon all aspects of the provision. In addition to this, managers review documentation. Following a review of the records used for children's progress checks, improvements are identified, and changes are swiftly implemented. As a result, parents are provided with really detailed information, highlighting more of their children's achievements in relation to their starting points.
• The management team have devised an exceptionally well-focused intent for the curriculum. The intent successfully includes factors that influence children's lives and their potential outcomes for the future. For example, management utilise data about children's progress, their backgrounds and experiences and the community they live in. The intent is also highly effective in supporting the needs of children with English as an additional language and those with additional needs.
• Children's personal development and their communication and language development is wonderfully promoted by staff. Planned adult-led, small group activities brilliantly capture children's attention. This is because highly skilled staff create anticipation, awe and wonder when introducing activities, such as 'What's in the box?' Staff are superb at engaging children through story telling. Staff are very successful in taking opportunities to extend children's learning even further. For example, following a story read to them about a gingerbread man, they learn how to count. When the story refers to how gingerbreads are cooked in the oven, staff extend children's learning to teach them how to stay safe. Further child-led activities in the play environment enable them to repeat what they have learned about the gingerbread man.
• Staff provide children with extremely rich experiences, that help them to achieve. Staff are highly effective in supporting children to gain a good opinion of themselves. They are sensitive in their approach and value the very small achievements some children make. For example, when children's counting is not in the correct numerical order, staff are vigilant to utilise the opportunity to praise and value their contribution. Staff then gently support children to learn to count in order. Consequently, all children feel valued and included.
• Highly effective arrangements are in place to support parents to be the best they can be in their role as primary carer and in educating their children at home. Parents and other childcare providers share overwhelming enthusiasm about the service they receive. They compliment the staff on the intense support their children receive to progress across all areas of their development.