The Children's Ark

Inclusion: Strong standard

Leaders and staff provide particularly strong support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff identify potential gaps in children's learning promptly and make detailed records about the children's development. For example, they note precisely what children can say and how they pronounce different sounds. This helps leaders and staff to share an accurate picture of each child with other professionals.

Leaders and staff plan together how to address children's individual needs through the targeted use of additional funding. In particular, they consider how to support children's personal, social and emotional development. For example, they have purchased additional sensory resources to help calm and engage children when they arrive or become unsettled.

Staff prioritise teaching children to recognise and manage how they feel, which is highly effective for children with SEND and those who require additional support. Consequently, children develop the tools required to help them assess their own level of engagement and take action to ensure they ignore distractions and focus their attention on what matters. For example, without any prompting from staff, children recognise when they are losing concentration during an adult-led group activity. Subsequently, they get up to select a sensory toy and immediately return to the group, where they are able to focus again while manipulating their chosen toy.

Leaders and staff work very closely with parents to identify other barriers to children's learning. They plan how to meet their individual needs, promoting consistency in children's experiences and celebrating what makes each child unique. Leaders and staff plan community fundraising events to highlight the work of charities who can support the families, and plan enjoyable activities based around children's cultures and religions.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Leaders have a clear and ambitious vision for what they want children to learn at the nursery. They share this with the staff team, to ensure staff have high expectations for all children when planning how to meet their individual needs. Leaders and staff prioritise children's personal, social and emotional development, to help children feel welcome, emotionally secure and comfortable at the nursery. When children are settled, staff assess their learning and development and consider how to use their interests to build on what they know and can do.

Overall, staff support children's communication and language development well. They narrate children's play, model a broad vocabulary and use signing throughout the day. Some staff ask children simple questions and give the children time to think and respond. However, staff's interactions with the younger children are inconsistent. At times, babies and toddlers receive less encouragement to practise speaking than their older friends. During these occasions, the younger children play happily but quietly and do not extend their language development.

Staff teach children mathematical concepts, such as by modelling counting and talking about shapes. They help pre-school children to identify numbers and encourage them to count out the matching number of items. This helps children to understand the link between numbers and quantity. Staff also help pre-school children to recognise the initial sounds in their name. Likewise, the children confidently call out when they identify the initial sounds in their friends' names.

Achievement: Expected standard

All children make progress from their starting points, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and other barriers to learning. They gain the knowledge and skills to prepare them well for the next stage in their learning. Babies develop the balance and coordination needed to climb the steps to the slide. At the top, they show delight when rolling balls and other toys down the slide. Babies persevere when they try to connect blocks together to build a tower. Toddlers imaginatively push toy trains along a track and laugh when they crash playfully into other trains. Pre-school children learn to recognise when their concentration is waning and understand how to help themselves to refocus.

Children develop a love of books from a young age. Pre-school children recall parts of well-known stories, such as remembering who the main character is, and join in with refrains. Toddlers roar with laughter when staff playfully act out books using sock puppets. Overall, children develop a broad vocabulary and learn to express their thoughts and ideas.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard

Children arrive confidently and happily. They leave their parents with a brief wave or a cuddle before entering the nursery. Children, including new babies, spontaneously hug staff throughout the day. This demonstrates their feelings of comfort and emotional security. Staff are playful and take part in the games and activities, which helps to lower children's inhibitions and encourages them to take part and be imaginative and creative.

Leaders and staff are clear about how to promote children's behaviour. Staff give children lots of praise and the children smile proudly in response, showing their developing confidence. They warn children how much longer they have left to play before they need to tidy up, which allows children time to end their play in their own way. Staff implement strategies from the training they have completed on children's emotions and behaviours to help create a calm and safe environment for all children. Staff notice when children are upset or unsettled, ask how they are feeling and model appropriate language, such as 'frustrated'.

During the morning session, staff do not extend children's social skills as effectively as they do in the afternoon. At these times, children are content but play alone and alongside one another, and do not receive as much support for their speech.

Leaders and staff are clear about the importance of regular and prompt attendance. They monitor children's attendance and work with parents to develop children's daily routines, to prepare them well for the next stage of their learning, including school.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Leaders and staff prioritise children's emotional wellbeing and their physical welfare. They work very closely with parents and other professionals to provide individual support to children and their families. For example, leaders and staff share information with parents about the importance of a nutritious and balanced diet, to support their overall health and engagement levels. This has helped children to arrive feeling ready to focus and learn. Staff have introduced toothbrushing into the nursery's daily routine and teach all children, including babies, how to maintain their oral health. Staff brush their teeth alongside the children to model and narrate the process. Given the current difficulties that families face in accessing a local dentist, leaders have also considered how to support children's oral health. For example, they ensure children and their siblings have toothbrushes and toothpaste at home. This helps to reduce barriers to maintaining good oral health and supports greater consistency between home and nursery.

Leaders and staff are clear about how to keep children safe at the nursery. They implement the safer sleep and eating guidance. For example, they check regularly on sleeping children and make sure children's food is sliced appropriately to reduce the risk of choking.

Staff recognise potential hazards and take appropriate action to reduce risks to children. For example, they teach children to use woodwork tools with care and only when they have staff's full attention, to ensure appropriate supervision.

Leadership and governance: Expected standard

Leaders have a clear vision for the positive impact they want to have on children. They have a secure understanding of child development and monitor the quality of teaching accurately, to ensure staff meet the needs of each child. Leaders recognise the particularly strong and consistent practice in the pre-school age group, which benefits the oldest children. Consequently, leaders are in the process of providing effective support, coaching and training to other staff, to strengthen practice with the younger children.

Leaders ensure that training is tailored to children's specific needs, in order to have the most impact. For example, the recent training around supporting children's emotional development has helped staff to develop a warm, calm and positive environment for all children. Leaders have arranged training around screen use, to find out about the impact this has on children's development, which they intend to share with children's parents.

Staff report they really enjoy their work and feel well supported by leaders.

Leaders form close links with all those who work with and care for children, including parents and other settings and professionals. They share information to keep children safe, meet their individual needs effectively and provide consistency in children's care and learning.