St Paschal Baylon Nursery and After School Care

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are dedicated and passionate about providing positive outcomes for all children. They create a calm, friendly and nurturing environment. Children are happy and settled. They arrive at nursery excited to explore the range of stimulating activities available. Staff build positive and trusting bonds with children. This helps children feel safe and secure. They have high expectations of all children, including for their behaviour. For example, they help children learn how to share the toys and resources. Staff praise children when they are kind and helpful, which also helps to build children's self-esteem.

Staff provide a broad curriculum which gives children the knowledge that they need to succeed. For example, staff invite visitors into the setting, such as paramedics, firefighters and community police officers. This helps children learn about people who help them within their community. Children have opportunities to watch chicks hatch out of their eggs in the incubator at nursery. They observe the changes to caterpillars as they change into butterflies. This helps children learn about the life cycle of animals.

Staff promote literacy well and children gain a love of books from a young age. Staff read stories with plenty of enthusiasm and children become immersed within the text. Parents attend the setting for story-time sessions. They are invited into nursery to be mystery readers for children. This helps to foster a love of books both at home and at nursery.

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

• Staff know the children have a thorough understanding of where children are up to in their development. They use this to plan appropriate next steps in children's learning. However, not all staff share the same knowledge about how to implement the planned curriculum. For example, not all staff have a firm understanding of the key vocabulary that they want children to learn. Despite this, children make good progress from their starting points.
• Overall, staff are supported well. Leaders ensure that staff keep their mandatory training, such as, in paediatric first aid and safeguarding, up to date. They prioritise staff's well-being and staff comment on how they feel a valued part of the nursery team. However, monitoring of staff's practice does not always identify where there are gaps in the delivery of the curriculum. Leaders do not evaluate staff's practice carefully enough to inform a programme of professional development that helps staff understand the curriculum and develop expertise in their teaching.
• Staff have high expectations of all children's behaviour. They use visual prompts with children. For example, staff make regular reference to visual timetables and they lower the lighting in the room to communicate that it is tidy-up time. This helps children further understand the nursery routines.
• The curriculum positively supports children's emotional development. Staff use text from stories, such as 'The Colour Monster', to help children learn about their own feelings. Children discuss how they think characters in books may be feeling and why. Staff support children to discover activities that help them to feel calm when they may be feeling sad. Children learn to regulate their own emotions.
• Staff promote children's growing independence well. For example, children confidently chop their own fruit at snack time and pour their own drinks. Children use cutlery confidently as they eat their hot dinner in the school hall. This helps children feel proud of the tasks they can complete by themselves and prepares them well for their transition to school.
• Parent partnerships are a key strength of the nursery. Staff make good use of an online app to help keep parents continuously updated about children's development. They invite parents into the nursery. For example, parents attend nature walks and Mother's Day story-time events. Staff also send story sacks home for parents to share with children. These close partnerships help to provide continuity in children's learning.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well. The special educational needs coordinator is knowledgeable about the individual needs of children attending the nursery. She makes timely referrals to a range of agencies and works closely with staff, parents and other professionals. This helps to ensure that the curriculum meets every child's needs.
• Staff have carefully considered the physical skills they want children to learn. Children show awareness of each other's space as they ride around the outdoor area on scooters. They scoop soil onto baking trays as they make dinner for staff in the mud kitchen, which helps to develop children's large-muscle movements. Children's physical development is promoted well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen systems for monitoring and coaching staff, to help accurately identify inconsistencies in the implementation of the curriculum
• embed a carefully planned, well informed and regularly reviewed programme of professional development, that helps to further develop staff's knowledge of the curriculum and their teaching skills.