Stone Eden Nursery School Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Relationships between children and staff are a strength of this nursery. The well-established key-person system helps children to settle quickly and gain confidence. Firmly embedded routines further promote children's feelings of safety and security, as they fully understand what is expected of them. They excitedly make their way to the carpet after snack in anticipation of what is happening next. Children's confidence and trusting relationships with staff impact positively on their behaviour and attitudes to learning. Children are extremely well behaved and are keen, motivated and curious learners.

Children make good progress. They enjoy opportunities to develop their large muscles as they climb, stretch and run and enjoy using the wheeled toys outside. As children move through the nursery, they develop well in their small-muscle skills, in excellent support of their later writing. Staff promote children's literacy skills well. They encourage younger children to explore the pictures by modelling lifting the flaps in the book. Older children benefit from repeated stories. They demonstrate their increasing comprehension of the storyline as they finish off lines or fill in gaps staff purposefully leave when reading the 'book of the week'. Children join in with songs daily, promoting their communication skills well.

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

• The manager is clear on her intent for children's learning from when they first start as babies until they leave the nursery to go on to school. This is well understood by staff working with children and helps to inform the planning for children's learning.
• Staff know children well and provide activities, resources and experiences well matched to what children need to learn next. However, the quality of the implementation of the curriculum is not always consistent. There are minor gaps in some aspects of staff practice and the curriculum which occasionally impact on children's learning experiences.
• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is excellent. The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) ensures close oversight of children's needs and supports staff very well. Staff are equally committed and ensure that children with SEND receive as ambitious a curriculum as their peers. They work closely with all involved professionals to ensure children's needs are well known and met.
• The curriculum for personal, social and emotional development is particularly strong. Staff prioritise key skills, such as sharing and playing cooperatively, from a young age. As a result, children play together harmoniously and are kind and patient with their peers.
• Children's good health is well promoted. The nursery cook provides a healthy and nutritious menu for children. Good hygiene routines are consistently followed. For example, children independently access the handwashing facilities after outdoor play and before eating. Children become increasingly independent in understanding and managing their own health and personal needs.
• Arrangements for working in partnership with parents and carers are highly effective. Parents are widely supported to contribute to their children's learning, such as through home-learning packs and communication using the nursery's online learning tool. Parents' views are frequently sought and acted upon, further promoting the collaborative working and ongoing improvements within the nursery.
• The leadership team comprises of skilled and knowledgeable managers who show a commitment to their roles. Together, they monitor the quality of practice, such as through monthly quality checks. However, this does not provide the manager with sufficient insight into the quality across the nursery. As a result, some aspects of implementation of the curriculum are not consistently strong across the nursery.
• Overall, staff are supported to develop their knowledge and skills through training opportunities and coaching from the manager. However, due to gaps in the monitoring of the quality of provision, professional development is not well informed and, therefore, not sufficiently targeted on how to raise the quality of staff practice.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the monitoring of the quality of provision to provide more in-depth evaluations of practice that can be used to better inform improvements
• embed a sustained programme of professional development that is carefully planned, well informed and regularly reviewed.