St Nicholas House

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The nursery is filled with happy and confident children, who keep trying and express delight when they achieve what they set out to do. Babies create close bonds with skilled and experienced staff, which helps them to feel safe. Babies giggle as they play with familiar musical instruments. They learn to recognise themselves in mirrors, and begin to develop an early respect for books. Babies also make great progress in their physical development, such as crawling and taking their first steps, as staff know precisely how to support them in this. Toddlers develop their self-care skills as they begin to use potties and toilets and wash their hands independently. Children treat each other kindly and are respectful to everyone around them.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, staff are providing children with even greater support in the development of their communication and language, and social skills. They are also providing children with greater challenge in their learning to help them to catch up. Small group activities provide children with lots of opportunities to express their own thoughts and ideas, which helps boost their confidence. Children are learning the sounds that letters represent. They identify letters of the alphabet that are significant to them and make the links to a variety of different words.

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

• The support in place for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is excellent. Leaders leave no stone unturned when it comes to removing barriers to learning. External professionals monitor intervention plans, alongside nursery staff, and children with SEND make good progress. For example, very young children progress rapidly in their physical development, which prepares them well for the next stages in their learning.
• Partnership working is a strength of the nursery. Links with parents and external professionals are rooted in trust and respect. Parents comment that staff are 'amazing and really care for the children'. Staff provide daily updates to parents and share ideas to help extend their children's learning at home. For example, staff share consistent strategies to help children regulate their behaviour. This approach helps to provide continuity in children's learning and aids their progress.
• Children access a variety of books. Staff read to children with enthusiasm and children relish opportunities to enact the roles of their favourite characters. Pre-school children talk about taking books home to share with their parents. The impact of this can be heard throughout the nursery. Toddlers talk with increasing fluency, while pre-school children talk in complex sentences and are able to explain their ideas coherently.
• Overall, children are confident and competent communicators. However, some staff do not consistently pronounce the correct letter sounds and words when speaking to children. For example, staff, occasionally, say 'fing' and 'avin', which does not help to best support children's emerging vocabulary.
• In the main, children are taught about the world around them. For example, they enjoy learning about different celebrations, such as Christmas and Eid. However, children have limited opportunities to learn about similarities and differences beyond their own experiences. This does not help to fully enrich their awareness of the wider world.
• Staff support children's large-muscle development. Children relish opportunities to climb on low-level apparatus outdoors and show excellent physical skill while playing football. This helps to develop their balance and coordination.
• Overall, staff receive support during supervision sessions and appraisal meetings. They feel valued and, generally, staff morale is high. However, leaders do not consistently provide staff with incisive feedback to raise their teaching to a higher level.
• Leaders evaluate the nursery well. Priorities for improvement are accurate and include the views of children, parents and staff. The capacity for leaders to continually improve and bring about change is good. This helps to promote children's care, learning, and development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff knowledge of how to teach children about differences and similarities
• provide staff with incisive feedback about their interactions with children, to raise their teaching to a higher level
• strengthen children's communication and language skills, by supporting staff to model the correct pronunciations of letter sounds and words.