Tammy's Tiny Tots

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive excited to start their day at the nursery. Older children start their play straight away, eager to see their friends. Younger children arrive, and staff make sure they are able to offer cuddles of reassurance. Once children feel settled, they go off to play. This helps to support children's self-esteem and confidence. Younger children learn new skills, such as learning to pull themselves up to standing. Staff provide a reassuring hand of support. Children beam and squeal with delight at their newfound skills. Staff match this excitement with praise, and children respond by dancing with excitement.

Toddlers enjoy learning new skills. Staff teach them how to throw balls into a bucket. Children concentrate when learning how to catch and then throw the balls. This helps to support children's hand-eye coordination and their physical development. Older children enjoy developing their small-muscle skills. They learn how to hold tweezers, matching coloured bears to cups. They show with excitement how they have matched them together, with staff matching this with praise. This helps to develop children's early literacy skills. Children learn rules to games as they work together and take turns, helping to support their behaviour management.

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

• Leaders and staff have worked hard since the last inspection to make improvements to the quality of teaching and learning. Leaders have been working closely with other agencies to make improvements to the curriculum. All actions have been met.
• Staff are consistent in their approach to behaviour management. They talk to children about the importance of turn taking and sharing. Children behave well.
• Staff do not have enough resources in the popular areas, such as the role-play area, to help support all children's learning and imagination.
• Leaders have attended training to assist them with supporting staff through regular supervisions. They now support staff's mental health and well-being, making sure their workload is manageable.
• Although staff have made improvements to planning and implementing the curriculum, they are not yet able to extend activities to fully support children's interests and provide extra challenge, where needed, for children.
• Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities well. Recent training has helped staff to identify when children need extra help and support. Staff engage well with parents, reviewing any concerns they have at home and linking these to observations and assessments from the nursery. This helps to provide good continuity of care for the children.
• Older children learn to try new fruit and vegetables during snack times. They learn how to prepare their own snacks through developing knife skills in cutting up pieces of celery and apples. Staff sit and talk to them about what they are having, helping children to learn the effects of healthy eating.
• Staff provide good-quality teaching. Staff make good use of starting points and plan good-quality activities. Children make good progress with their learning and development given their starting points.
• Staff support children who speak English as an additional language well. They use picture cards to help them identify routines. Staff ensure they use simple sentences when talking to children, helping them to learn new words in English.
• Staff have started to use new systems to record children's assessments and observations. They have found that sharing these daily with parents has helped them to identify missing areas of learning, which has strengthened partnership working with parents. This helps to provide continuity of care for children.
• Children enjoy problem-solving activities. They work with staff to solve how to complete puzzles. Staff use early mathematical language when talking to children, such as 'bigger than', 'smaller than', 'turn around', and 'next to'. This helps them to learn the right way the pieces of the jigsaw fit together.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the quantity of resources used in popular areas to support children's learning
• support staff to use children's interests during the planning of activities to help to extend children's learning further.