Start Well Learning Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The experienced, well-qualified managers and staff demonstrate an unwavering sense of purpose. They model a thoughtful, questioning approach in their practice. Children, therefore, learn from learners.

The curriculum promotes children's listening and attention skills from the very start. This gives children access to factual information, new ideas and rich language. Staff use book 'grab baskets' to involve children in storytelling. Two-year-old children eagerly anticipate their turn to reach into the basket to find the next item of food for the bear in the story. The children's deep involvement is demonstrated by their whole-body movement when they pretend to slam the door, 'wham, bang, thump', on the scary bear. They then incorporate the props into their own imaginative play. Stories, expertly communicated, stimulate children's further knowledge and enquiry.

Well-designed routines, conscientiously followed, mean that everyone knows what they are expected to do. This promotes children's obvious sense of security and they generate a busy buzz of self-initiated activity and interaction. Pre-school children demonstrate a high level of cooperative play. They work as a team to transfer water to a jug, via a funnel and pipe. They cut and prepare vegetables in the home corner and make joint decisions about what will happen next in their game. Children continually build on their existing knowledge of the world.

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

• Managers are uncompromisingly ambitious for everyone's achievement. Staff incorporate their own ideas and new learning into their practice. At the same time, managers give them clear direction that promotes a common approach and a consistently high standard of teaching. Staff watch and listen to children. They skilfully intervene to provoke children's thinking and extend their knowledge. All children make rapid progress from their starting points.
• The curriculum is rooted in children's capacity to learn anything that is taught in a meaningful context. Staff teach children the right word at the right moment. When children see tiny shoots emerge from seeds, they learn that the seeds have 'germinated'. Younger children learn to identify animals that are 'fish'. Older children know that there are lots of different fish, such as 'haddock' and 'sharks'. The number of words that children know is impressive.
• Staff combine novelty and repetition within familiar daily routines. At group time, staff show children how to use fingers when they count. They often repeat the calculation that five weekdays, plus two weekend days, makes seven days altogether. By the time they go to school, children use the language of addition correctly and with confidence. Children bring interesting things to show everyone. An empty eggshell gets everyone thinking about life cycles.
• After the COVID-19 pandemic, staff noticed that children were more reluctant to touch and be touched. They planned ways to encourage children to offer and accept physical contact. One outcome of this is the much-anticipated annual 'spa day'. Children administer and receive pampering treatments. They become more aware of their own and other people's emotions and mental health.
• Highly effective partnerships promote continuity in children's care and education. Pre-attendance home visits help staff to begin a targeted curriculum as soon as children arrive. A network of local services supports timely intervention when families need support. Open, positive relationships between the setting and the school help to enhance everyone's professional skills and knowledge. Children are safer because staff know when to seek advice and how to share information.
• Clear routines and expert teaching promote children's ability to self-regulate. Access to an exciting story requires two-year-old children to remain seated on their floor cushion. This forms the early habit of sitting in an adult-led group to participate and learn. Pre-school children learn how to wait. They join in with an adult's choice of activity until the sand in the sand timer runs through. Their immediate reward is access to their favourite play, but they also discover new activities to return to and learn from.
• Managers say that 'the future of the world is in this room'. They use additional funding to invest in all aspects of children's development. A climbing frame promotes children's ability to measure and manage risk. Specialist resources and staff training support individual learning targets for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). When families face challenging circumstances, the funding means that children can attend more hours.
• Parents and carers confirm that children in the setting make rapid progress in their development. Parents of children with SEND are particularly impressed with the targeted support that children receive. Parents praise the genuine kindness that staff offer to themselves and their children. They say that children are eager to attend. In one example, children chose a day at nursery instead of a day out on their birthday.