Starshine

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff greet children warmly as they arrive. Children enjoy their time at the nursery. They are confident, happy and have fun. They arrive excitedly, leave their parents with ease and are eager to investigate the activities provided. Children are cared for by staff that know them well. There is a challenging and ambitious curriculum that successfully excites children and supports them to make the best possible progress in their learning and development. For example, staff develop children's imagination and keen interest in dinosaurs. They add leaves, sticks and play dough to extend their enjoyment. This helps children to explore resources and lead their own play.

Staff support children to behave well. Children show that they acquire positive social skills and good attitudes to learning. Staff act as good role models for sharing and taking turns with others. Staff help children to learn early recognition of emotions and how to self-regulate their behaviour. This supports children to express their thoughts and become aware of other people's feelings. Staff manage children's personal care respectfully and share ideas with the parents. For instance, staff provide workshops for parents to support them at home, such as on potty training. They provide effective opportunities for children to develop and practise important skills in readiness for school.

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

• The manager and the staff provide a broad and varied curriculum, which aims to give all children a good start in their learning. For example, the attractive reading space with soft cushions and a tent enclosure support children to enjoy a cosy space, where they can cuddle up with staff to read their favourite stories. Children show a love of books. When reading familiar stories, such as 'The Gingerbread Man', staff make story times fully interactive, inviting children to finish off familiar phrases. Staff's enthusiasm and use of intonation really capture their attention and help the development of early literacy skills.
• Staff promote children's good behaviour. Older children play well together, making different models out of coloured pegs and sharing these with their friends. Children develop confidence and are proud of their achievements. A well-established key-person relationship means all children feel happy and secure.
• Overall, staff support children's communication and language skills well. They model language, introduce new phrases and sing songs to them to help them extend their vocabulary. Staff build on children's discussions and interests to broaden their understanding and interest in the wider world. For example, children develop an understanding of farm animals and food through a farm topic, and they learn about the natural world. They use tweezers to pick up red spaghetti 'worms' hidden in crushed cereal and then dig for real worms in the garden. However, some staff do not take into account children's prior knowledge to enhance spontaneous opportunities, to talk in detail and extend children's growing interest and vocabulary. This reduces the purposefulness of the learning opportunity.
• Staff promote children's developing mathematical knowledge well. They have prioritised this successfully. Younger children enjoy joining in with singing number rhymes and songs. Children recognise numbers on house doors on walks and handle real money when buying food from local shops.
• Children are encouraged to be independent. They learn self-care skills, such as dressing themselves by putting on their own coat. Nursery routines help to support transitions between activities. For instance, staff use the 'tidy-up song' to signal to children that there is a change in the routine.
• Children benefit from exciting activities that help them to develop good physical skills. They use their small-muscle skills and hand-eye coordination. They use scoops and spoons to measure and pour out ingredients to make play dough. Furthermore, children have ample opportunities to practise and build on their large-muscle skills and balancing skills in the well-resourced garden.
• Parents speak highly of the staff and comment on how caring and nurturing the team is. Staff provide regular updates for parents about their child's ongoing progress. In addition, they share ideas with parents to enable them to build on their child's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen teaching further by ensuring that spontaneous learning activities take account of children's prior learning experiences and help promote more purposeful discussions.