The City Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled in this welcoming nursery. They arrive with beaming smiles and enthusiasm for the day as staff warmly greet them. Staff care for the children attentively, which supports their emotional well-being. They offer warm hugs and speak softly to all children. Children develop strong relationships with staff, which help them to feel safe and secure. The staff display photos of children, giving them a real sense of belonging.

Staff plan exciting activities and use good intonation and enthusiasm in their spoken voice when singing, reading and speaking, which supports children's communication and language skills. Children are highly engaged as staff pretend to cast a spell using a magic stick, which creates excitement among the children as they mix red and yellow paint in their hands. Staff ask children to close their eyes as they wait for the spell to end. Staff encourage children's thinking as they ask what colour they have made, and children shout 'orange'. Older children are excited to act out their favourite stories and rhymes, supporting their literacy skills. As staff read children's stories, they leave off the end of sentences for children to finish. This helps to keep children engaged, enables them to contribute to the storytelling and develops their early literacy skills.

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

• Staff are positive role models and are kind and gentle with the children. As a result, children learn to respect one another and use kind words and hands. Staff teach children about different emotions. During welcome time, children are asked how they are feeling today. This supports children's understanding of their own emotions and the feelings of others, which helps them to develop positive relationships.
• Partnerships with parents are highly valued. Staff regularly discuss children's progress with parents and inform them of their children's next steps in learning. Parents state that they feel involved and appreciate the suggestions that staff make about how best to support children at home. The nursery has termly parent meetings and stay-and-play sessions to strengthen parent partnership and help build on children's learning.
• Staff know children well and have a clear understanding of what they need to learn next. They promptly identify gaps in children's learning and work closely with parents and other professionals to provide targeted support. Leaders ensure that additional funding is used effectively to benefit the children who receive it. This helps children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, to make good progress.
• Staff provide a good balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities that are based on children's interests. Overall, children demonstrate high levels of motivation and engagement. However, staff do not consistently support less-confident and quieter children to join in discussions, build confidence and have their voices heard.
• Children have lots of opportunities to develop their physical skills. They learn to pedal tricycles and negotiate space as they whizz around obstacle courses, developing their large-muscle skills. Staff encourage them to keep trying, building on their resilience. Children develop the small muscles in their hands as they manipulate play dough and copy staff as they model how to use rolling pins. Staff encourage children to be creative as they use googly eyes, pipe cleaners and wooden sticks to create 'spiders'. Staff praise children for their efforts, which promotes children's confidence and self-esteem.
• Staff support some aspects of children's independence. For example, children are encouraged to make choices at snack time. However, staff are often quick to complete simple tasks for children that they could try for themselves, such as filling and fetching their drink bottles or using tongs to select their snacks. This does not fully support children to develop independence skills to ensure that they are ready for the next stage of their learning.
• Managers have a clear process in place for recruitment, induction and supervision. Staff say that they feel supported in their roles and work well as a team. Managers have a clear vision to ensure that all staff receive training and develop professionally. This ensures that staff can support the needs of the children and help them make good progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to include quieter children in discussions so they can build confidence and have their voices heard
• help children to develop independence skills and complete tasks for themselves.