Teenie Weenies

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff have established a home-from-home environment that positively contributes towards children's good behaviour. Children freely explore a range of resources that reflect those used in the home. They act out real-life scenarios, such as using a tea bag to make a pretend cup of tea. Older children charge their peers 'twenty pounds' for a cup. This shows that children confidently use mathematical concepts, such as number, to enhance their play. Staff ensure that children are happy and feel safe. Older children draw what they would like to be when they grow up. Staff help them to think about their values, hopes and future dreams.

The manager places a strong focus on helping children to learn more about their local community. Children enjoy learning about city life as they take daily walks into the community. Staff purposefully plan outings to enhance children's next steps and interests, such as visits to the train station, where children learn about transport. This helps to build children's curiosity of the world around them. Children enthusiastically talk about their own experiences. They tell staff what number bus they travel on. Children confidently identify numbers, colours, and various types of transport they can see, such as bikes and rainbow-coloured coaches.

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

• The manager aims to adopt a child-led learning approach, where all children can lead their own learning, make choices, and figure things out using their knowledge and skills. However, on some occasions, routine activities appear rushed, and staff do not always offer children the opportunity to do things for themselves and at their own pace. This does not fully support children to build confidence in their skills.
• Children receive tailored support to help them to settle well, including those children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. For example, staff rock backwards and forwards while holding a child, to calm and stimulate their sensory needs. They know children well, including the signs children exhibit when they start to feel overwhelmed. This enables staff to quickly act to regain children's focus in their learning.
• The manager is extremely passionate about improving children's outcomes. She gives full consideration, including research, to help staff to plan for individual children's needs and experiences. Children benefit from additional time with their key person to discuss their feelings, build self-esteem and promote healthy relationships.
• Key persons obtain information from parents and carers about their children's prior experiences and achievements, which helps children to make progress from the start. Parents are happy with the communication they receive to enable them to engage in their children's learning.
• Through songs, visual aids and conversations with others, children hear and learn the context of spoken words. For instance, staff use words such as 'stalk' when referring to the main stem of a plant. They ask children open-ended questions to challenge their thinking. This supports all children, including those who speak English as an additional language, to make good progress.
• The manager has effective procedures in place to help staff to identify what children need to learn next. Staff identify some delays in younger children's physical development. They plan opportunities through soft play to help children to develop their balance and core strength. Babies who are new to walking show good control in their movements as they walk proudly from one activity to another.
• The manager responds effectively to parent views to inform improvement plans. She uses supervision and monitoring to support staff practice and offers them continual training. Staff positively describe their experiences at the setting, including how they benefit from working closely with the manager.
• Staff provide children with positive interactions. Children benefit from staff's regular singing and their eagerness to play. For example, staff squeeze the sand and mix the water to encourage babies to engage in their learning. Babies copy the actions staff model, and together they explore the textures of a beach. Parents express their thanks for the support their children receive. They comment that 'staff are great role models'.
• Children show an excellent awareness of city dangers and listen well to staff. Children know to wait for the green man. They wait patiently until staff reassure them it is safe to cross the road.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to ensure that children have more opportunities to do things for themselves and at their own pace to further build on their confidence and skills.