Teensy Wonders

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Caring staff greet children warmly as they arrive and settle quickly into play. Children share strong attachments to their key person. This helps them feel safe and emotionally secure. Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and have implemented positive behaviour strategies. This ensures that children understand why the rules are in place and learn how to self-regulate their behaviour. The manager engages regularly with the local authority advisers to gain further advice and support to help meet the individual needs of children. This includes using effective strategies to help children with special educational needs and/or disabilities make progress.

The manager has a clear vision for their broad and ambitious curriculum. This is thoroughly understood by staff and is delivered very well across the nursery. For example, after reading the book 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar', staff encourage children to look for slugs. Staff extend children's learning by providing paint and stampers for them to create butterfly and ladybird pictures. Staff ensure that children of all ages benefit from spending time in a highly attractive and well-resourced outdoor and forest school area. Children have opportunities to grow vegetables, dig for slugs and cut up real mint and coriander from their herb garden for role play. Staff further extend children's learning of the natural world. For instance, while children plant real vegetables and herbs, staff listen to children's personal experiences and use prior learning to ask questions about plants and seed. They use this information to extend this knowledge further through meaningful discussions while planting the vegetables and herbs. Children benefit from learning about the wider world.

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

• The manager and staff work together to evaluate the nursery. They hold regular meetings to discuss what is going well and identify areas for improvement, such as ensuring their planning takes account of children's needs, abilities and interests. They actively take into account the views of children, staff and parents. For instance, a lending library service is available for parents to read stories with their children. This helps to promote children's love for books at the nursery and at home.
• Children learn how to adopt healthy lifestyles from the outset. They understand the importance of thoroughly washing their hands and eating healthy foods. They serve and feed themselves at mealtimes and build up their independence skills. Additionally, children benefit from exerting themselves physically as they run, climb large equipment and balance on mini two-wheel bikes, with increasing agility.
• The curriculum includes several initiatives which expand on children's experiences. For example, young children benefit from communication and language programmes, such as small-group language sessions. Staff make regular assessments of what children know and can do. This helps them to plan what children need to learn next and to close any gaps in their learning.
• Staff support children to develop their critical thinking skills. They sit alongside children to encourage them to find their own way of doing things and work out solutions to problems. For example, children work out that the best way to fill bubble water in small containers using pipettes to push the water into narrow bottle necks. Staff engage children in meaningful conversations. They introduce language, such as 'wedge', to describe what they do.
• Children learn to explore their feelings, for example, by visiting 'emotion stations' and reading stories. Staff respond to all the children sensitively. For example, staff encourage children to talk about or represent what they see or feel, using pictures of various emotions around the nursery.
• Staff highly value all children's efforts and interests. Children take part in various celebrations and learn about other cultures and beliefs that reflect the nursery community, such as Eid and Greek Easter celebrations. This supports children to develop a strong sense of identity.
• The provider is also the manager of this welcoming nursery. She strives to deliver high-quality care and education to all. The manager works with her staff each day. This helps her to monitor the quality of their teaching and children's learning. The manager is reflective. She knows what the nursery does well and identifies some areas for further development. The manager joins her staff to attend some training to further their knowledge and skills. However, the manager is yet to target individual professional development opportunities to raise the quality of their teaching to the highest level.
• The parent partnership is strong. The manager keeps parents up to date with children's well-being and learning through daily opportunities to talk and by use of an online tool. The nursery provides various tips and suggestions, for parents to support home learning. Parents speak very highly of the care and support given to their children and their families.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• target staff's professional development needs more precisely to support their continuous professional development.