Stepping Stones Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are highly motivated and have lots of fun at this wonderfully inclusive nursery. Children are exceptionally inquisitive and enjoy the freedom to follow their own interests. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make consistently rapid progress in their development. Children's behaviour and attitude to learning are exemplary. They are empathetic, considerate and patient. Children receive sensitive support from staff to help them to recognise and express their emotions and feelings.

All children build very strong attachments with their key person and staff, which ensures that they feel safe and secure. Staff know the children exceptionally well and are attentive and nurturing. Children have wonderful opportunities to develop their independence and physical skills. They engage in age-appropriate risk-taking, enabling them to understand how to keep themselves safe. For example, very young children competently use knives to chop up vegetables to make an Irish stew. Older children gain hands-on experience using tools, such as hammers, to bang nails into pieces of wood with care, developing their hand-to-eye coordination.

Children develop a love of books and enthusiastically join in with familiar nursery rhymes and actions. They express their creativity as they paint pictures while listening to music with headphones. Children take part in a range of exciting outings based on their interests to further extend their knowledge and understanding. For example, children's keen interest in transport led to a train journey to the airport. Children had lots of fun as they watched aeroplanes landing and taking off.

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

• The management team is highly knowledgeable, passionate and strives for excellence at all times. It places children at the heart of everything it does and adopts a curriculum that is designed to give every child the best possible start in life. The professional and dedicated staff share the same vision for quality and have the highest expectations for all children. Children with SEND are superbly supported by their key person.
• Before new children start at the nursery, managers and staff offer home visits, which help to build relationships prior to starting at the nursery. Staff gather key information from parents and use this to plan meaningful experiences and familiar care routines that help them settle.
• Parent partnerships are remarkable. Parents are involved in all aspects of nursery life and their child's learning. Staff use social events and a parent committee to ensure parents' voices are heard, creating a nursery community that provides high levels of support. Parents hold the nursery and staff in very high regard.
• Staff are excellent role models and consistently extend children's vocabulary through thoughtful and high-quality interactions. They provide children with unlimited opportunities to think critically, problem-solve and test out their ideas. For example, younger children experience the effects of the wind. They blow bubbles and predict which way the bubbles will travel depending on the direction the wind is blowing.
• Children are provided with countless opportunities to practise their mark-making skills in preparation for writing. Older children demonstrate excellent pencil control as they practise writing the recipe for pancakes. They tell the inspector the pancakes will sizzle in the frying pan first and then they will flip them. Babies smile and babble during highly stimulating sensory play. They use the small muscles in their hands to squeeze the juice from an orange and use their fingers to make marks in flour.
• All children have daily opportunities to exercise and play in the fresh air. They learn about the natural world and living things when they help to care for the nursery's pet tortoises. They carefully stroke the tortoise's head and describe how the shell has a pattern of triangle and square shapes.
• The management team and staff are extremely passionate about helping children to understand the diversity of the world we live in. Children respect and embrace the similarities and differences between people and celebrate the uniqueness of their own heritage and culture. This successfully promotes inclusion and helps children to be extremely well prepared for life in modern Britain.
• The management team has excellent links with teachers from the local schools the children are due to attend. Staff take children to visit the school to familiarise themselves with their new surroundings. They share information and assessments to ensure that children settle quickly and transitions are as smooth and exciting as possible.