The Barn Nursery School (Wootton) Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive full of smiles and excitement, ready to start their busy day ahead. They are warmly welcomed by friendly leaders and staff. Children confidently follow arrival routines and quickly settle into choosing from the exciting hands-on activities on offer. A love for learning is clearly evident as they explore new experiences with creativity and flair. Children express a deep affection for staff and describe them as their 'best friends'. They build secure attachments and demonstrate a real sense of belonging.

New children benefit immensely from tailored settling-in sessions. Staff gather detailed information from parents about children's likes and dislikes, their home cultures and languages spoken. They use this to shape the intended curriculum around children's individual needs and interests. Staff particularly support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) very well, such as delivering targeted language interventions. Strong key-person arrangements enable each child to receive allocated quality time in a focused and meaningful way.

Staff are excellent role models and treat all children with kindness and patience. This creates a truly respectful and harmonious environment, where children learn to value and care for one another. Children display high levels of empathy and engage in positive social interactions. For example, older children offer toys to their younger peers and speak calmly to them. Staff use plenty of praise, which helps to reinforce positive behaviour and boost children's senses of pride and self-esteem.

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

• The knowledgeable and committed leadership team is proactive and constantly strives to offer the best possible standards in care and education. It has created a sequenced and ambitious curriculum that prepares children well for their eventual move to school. Feedback from a variety of professional sources is used to support staff, to evaluate the provision and make positive changes. This highly reflective and supportive system helps staff to ensure that all children, including those with SEND, make sustained progress.
• Leaders and staff are dedicated to removing barriers that children face in their learning. Staff complete accurate assessments of children's ongoing development and know them well. They are quick to identify emerging gaps in children's learning and use targeted interventions, which are proving very successful, such as supporting their emotional well-being and self-regulation with the help of visuals. Leaders create robust connections with external professionals and also work closely with parents, which enables children to receive the right support at the right time.
• Regular supervision and access to an array of training opportunities help staff to enhance their knowledge and skills. In the main, interactions between staff and children are purposeful and support children's good progress over time. However, staff do not always reflect or precisely adapt their approach to match children's learning styles and build on what they already know and can do. Consequently, at these times, some children's learning is not extended to reach its full potential.
• A wide selection of books is available to children throughout the day. Children independently seek out their favourites stories or information books that capture their interest. They smile as they look at the colourful pictures. Older children turn pages and scan the text confidently. Staff bring stories to life through their expressive reading and discussions. This approach is embedded across all areas of the nursery curriculum. Staff also provide reading materials for children to share with their families. This helps to foster a strong early reading culture and an ever-growing vocabulary.
• Overall, children benefit from a broad range of opportunities to build on their fine motor skills. This includes engaging in messy-play activities to explore different textures, such as squashing and flattening play dough. Staff teach children how to use tools such as scissors effectively and promote mark-making activities, which help to strengthen their hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity skills. However, the outdoor provision is not as stimulating as indoors. Staff do not consistently identify when children require greater physical challenge, such as when children easily balance on low-level planks. As a result, children's gross motor development is not sufficiently extended, and they are not always supported to take safe risks to build physical confidence.
• Children's understanding of the world around them and people in their local community are strongly promoted. Engaging visitors, such as a pilot, spark children's lasting curiosity and inspire meaningful conversations. Children also explore nature first hand and delight in experiences in the local woodland area. They enthusiastically search for mini-beasts, such as ladybirds. Staff show a genuine interest in children's cultural backgrounds and celebrate these with the wider group. They incorporate elements such as reggae music and family holiday photos to reflect children's heritage. Inclusive experiences such as these help children value diversity and foster a strong sense of identity and belonging in the wider world.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance staff's ability to reflect on and adapt their practice to ensure the curriculum is delivered in a more precise way, and interactions consistently enrich and extend children's learning
• review and strengthen the existing curriculum for physical development to effectively challenge, promote and extend children's gross motor skills further.