Standish Under 5s

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are supported effectively to settle when they start to attend this warm and welcoming nursery. Staff gather a variety of information from parents when their child begins to attend. They provide activities based upon children's current interests. This helps children to feel a strong sense of belonging. Children are supported by dedicated staff, who care deeply about their well-being and that of their families. Although many children are new to the nursery, they have already formed strong attachments to the nurturing staff.

Staff recognise that the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has had an impact upon children's learning and development. Staff currently give high priority to children's personal, social and emotional development to help to build their confidence and to prepare them for their future learning.

Children are happy and enjoy attending the nursery. They explore the environment, both indoors and outside with enthusiasm. Babies and younger children choose to look at books, turning the pages as they look at the pictures. Older children sustain their attention when engaged in tasks. They enjoy working things out for themselves. For example, they negotiate and try out their ideas as they try to build the tallest tower of bricks.

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

• The manager is a passionate and dedicated leader. She operates with high integrity. The manager has a clear vision for the nursery that is shared with staff and parents. She considers the views of staff, children and parents when making positive changes to the running of the nursery.
• Overall, staff support children's learning well, particularly during planned activities. They provide a range of opportunities that children enjoy and which support them to make good progress. For example, older children excitedly use a range of materials to design and make their own pumpkin pictures. Staff talk to them about what they see them doing as they cut, glue and paint to make their picture. Occasionally, however, staff do not consistently recognise when opportunities to extend children's learning during their self-chosen play arise.
• Staff talk with children and introduce new words in their conversations. Children exploring musical instruments are supported to use the correct name for the instruments. They talk confidently to the inspector about the tambourine and the trumpet. Children have an impressive range of vocabulary and use this confidently during their conversations.
• Staff are encouraged to attend training to enhance their skills further and put their knowledge to good effect. For example, training in the development of communication skills resulted in staff adopting the 'keys to communication'.
• These are used effectively to identify and support children with possible speech and language needs.
• Staff feel well supported in their role. The manager observes them as they work with children and gives suggestions as to how they could improve their practice further. That said, opportunities for staff to observe and learn from each other to improve their teaching skills further have not yet been utilised.
• Parents speak very highly of the nursery and are overwhelmingly positive about the support their children receive. In particular, they praise the communication from the manager and staff during the pandemic. They welcome the electronic methods of communication recently introduced. Parents are confident that their children are safe and well cared for. They praise the sensitive changes made by the manager to help to ensure the well-being of children during the pandemic.
• Strong links have been made with the local community. The nursery benefits from strong links with a local residential care home. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, children were delighted to be invited to the 101st birthday of a local resident and describe how they sang happy birthday and enjoyed cake with the residents.
• Staff work in close partnership with a range of outside agencies to help to ensure that the needs of all children are met. Support for children is quickly sought, should staff have any concerns about a child's learning and development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support and help staff to understand how to challenge children and extend their learning even further, particularly during children's free play
• strengthen the existing arrangements for the monitoring and development of staff and support staff to share aspects of their good practice and to learn from each other.