The Clock House Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Parents are warmly welcomed into the nursery as they take their children to the playrooms. They benefit from shared handovers with the key persons at the beginning and end of the day. This helps to ensure children feel safe and secure.

Staff provide a warm and nurturing approach that enables children to flourish in the nursery. They plan experiences based around topics they implement into each room. For example, babies have recently shown an interest in ducks. Staff follow this theme, singing 'Five Little Ducks' and use this opportunity to encourage the older babies to join in to support their language skills. They provide a variety of toy ducks for the younger babies to explore, helping them learn about shape and size.

Staff ensure children have many opportunities to develop their physical skills. Older children ride on tricycles, navigating their way around the outdoor equipment. They mount the climbing frame with ease. Younger children explore the wooden activity centres in their playroom. They persevere and concentrate as they twist and turn the knobs. Staff promote children's fine motor skills well. They encourage the children to pat and roll the playdough and then to cut it with the shape cutters they make available.

Children develop good social skills. Staff support them well to understand the behaviour that is expected. For example, children learn to share, take turns and collaborate as they play. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and English as an additional language, make good progress from their starting points.

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

• The nursery has been open for a year and the directors have a clear vision for the future. They show a strong motivation to continually develop and improve the provision. For example, they are committed to making further improvements to the outdoor space and building on how they gather feedback from parents.
• Staff report they feel valued in their work and supported in their roles. They comment there is an open-door policy where they can speak to the manager or directors. Newly introduced appraisals and supervisions help the staff develop their knowledge and skills. Staff attend training and bring ideas back to implement in the nursery. This helps them to provide new opportunities for the children.
• Children thoroughly enjoy a range of activities inside and outside. They are keen to join in and they show excitement in their learning. Younger children play well together exploring the different-sized 'compare bears'. Staff promote mathematical language as they encourage the children to count the objects.
• However, at times, group activities are not planned fully successfully to take all children's needs into account. For example, on occasion group activities are too large for all children to be involved, and they sometimes struggle to stay engaged.
• Staff organise various outings for the children. This includes trips to the local library and nearby residential home for the elderly. This helps children to learn about the world around them and develops their knowledge and understanding of the community in which they live.
• Children know the nursery routine and listen well to staff. They learn about keeping healthy and understand the importance of washing their hands before eating. Staff provide children with healthy home-cooked meals and freshly prepared snacks. However, although an aim of the curriculum is to encourage older children's independence skills, during mealtimes staff often complete tasks for children that they could try themselves. This does not consistently offer older children opportunities to develop their self-help skills.
• Children enjoy listening to 'The Hungry Caterpillar' story. Staff impart new vocabulary such as 'cocoon' and encourage the children to predict what will happen when the caterpillar comes out of this. Children excitedly make the motions of the butterfly's wings. This activity encourages children's confidence and language as they discuss the life cycle of the butterfly and join in with the actions.
• Staff promote and support children's behaviour well. They understand the importance of role modelling. This contributes positively to children's own behaviour.
• Partnership with parents is very strong. Staff use an online platform to upload photographs to show the rooms set up ready for the next day, to ignite curiosity. They share information about next steps in the children's development. Parents talk highly of the staff team and how excited their children are to come to nursery. They comment staff have a drive to make their children excel. Staff provide ideas to support children's learning at home. This joined up approach enables children to thrive in their development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the planning and organisation of adult-led activities to engage all children taking part more effectively
• enhance staff's understanding of how to consistently support children to develop their independence and self-help skills.