The Brambles Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

All children demonstrate that they are remarkably settled and confident in their surroundings. Staff highly value each child as an individual and adapt their care and teaching to meet children's individual needs. They interact with children in a very warm, respectful manner. As a result, children form exceedingly strong bonds with staff.

Staff have exceptionally high expectations of all children. They place a high emphasis on supporting all children to develop outstanding independence skills. For example, younger children smile with delight as they help carry a paddling pool to the garden. Older children show excellent perseverance as they put on their own socks and get themselves ready for forest school.

Children's behaviour is exemplary. Staff promote positive behaviour exceptionally well and use strategies which have a significant impact on children's emotional well-being. Children independently share, help each other with tasks and build a strong sense of their own feelings and emotions. For instance, children engage in conversations together about how they are feeling and point to the display about different emotions to help them make connections.

Due to the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, parents are not allowed into the setting. However, staff ensure that parents are still given an in-depth handover and key information has been moved to where parents can easily access it without coming into the nursery.

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

• The curriculum is inspiring, ambitious and well planned to meet children's interests and individual needs. For example, older children have been learning about the world around them. Children are able to locate different countries on a world map and recognise different flags. Staff adapt their excellent teaching skills to support all children. They help children to find certain countries by sounding out the first letter of the country. Children thoroughly enjoy exploring and learning about currencies from different countries.
• Outdoor learning is given extremely high priority for all children. The outdoor learning environment is stimulating and interesting. Older children eagerly take part in forest school sessions in the woodland garden. They comment 'I love forest school'. Staff expertly promote mathematics as children are given a numbered pebble and log. Children work together to order these in a line and then find hidden gems in the woodland to match the numbers. Children are able to recognise and order numbers up to 19.
• Staff promote children's communication and language development at every opportunity. They place a high emphasis on ensuring that all children hear a rich vocabulary of words and give children clear explanations to help them understand new words. For instance, as babies explore bugs, they learn about millipedes and centipedes. Older children learn about fossils as they talk about a recent trip to the beach.
• The managers lead their team with enthusiasm and are passionate about providing children and their families with the highest possible outcomes. They foster a culture of reflective practice among the staff and monitor staff's practice exceptionally well to maintain outstanding levels of teaching. For example, managers gently give staff constructive feedback on their teaching to extend their practice even further. Self-evaluation processes are highly accurate, which leaders use well to continually focus on improving outcomes for children. For example, staff are developing an area outdoors to give all children the experience of growing their own fruit and vegetables.
• Partnerships with parents, professionals, local schools and other settings that children attend are exceptional. Parents comment that the nursery offers a wonderfully loving, caring and personalised approach. Staff have developed excellent partnerships with local schools. For instance, they have worked extremely hard to contact all schools that children will be attending. Staff collated information and hosted an online session for parents to inform them of ways they can support their child before starting school.
• The managers and staff closely track children's progress through highly effective observations and assessments. These clearly show children's progress and areas for further development. All staff take prompt and effective action to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. As a result, all children are making excellent progress and are extremely well prepared for the next stage in their learning.