The Farningham Day Nursery

Inclusion: Strong standard

Leaders identify emerging needs swiftly and support all children to achieve. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) or those with barriers to their learning. Children's progress is monitored using a rigorous assessment cycle. This identifies any gaps in learning and enables staff to plan personalised support effectively.

Children with SEND benefit consistently from well-planned, individual support. This includes purposeful resources and carefully adapted environments. For example, children have access to their own calming spaces. They are also encouraged to use headphones to listen to songs and stories when the environment becomes too overwhelming.

Leaders and staff work in close partnership with parents, carers and external professionals to ensure that support is implemented well. Leaders have clear plans in place to reduce barriers and improve outcomes. They ensure effective use of additional funding. As a result, children, including those with SEND and those who face barriers to learning, are fully included, taking part confidently and making rapid progress from their starting points.

Leaders create a fully inclusive environment by embedding and promoting equality and diversity. They provide a range of books and resources that celebrate different languages, cultures and family dynamics. This successfully helps to develop respectful attitudes and broadens children's understanding of the wider world.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Leaders have created a new curriculum that is child-centred and focuses on children's individual interests and needs. They skilfully adapt the environment to ensure that all children, especially those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and diverse backgrounds, can learn, develop and thrive. Children's learning builds step by step at every stage of their nursery journey. Activities are generally well designed to support all areas of learning, sparking interest and wonder.

The learning environment flows between indoors and outdoors, providing a wide variety of activities. An extensive garden space offers several exciting learning opportunities. For example, children enjoy building sandcastles and racing cars with their friends. They find joy in growing their own herbs and vegetables at their garden-based allotment. This helps them learn about healthy food and caring for living things while building confidence and curiosity. Children benefit from hands-on, practical experiences that develop communication, teamwork, problem-solving skills and physical coordination.

Leaders ensure that the curriculum is typically taught well. Mathematical skills and vocabulary are explicitly taught and woven through a range of activities. For example, staff encourage children to count while building and stacking blocks. Although the quality of teaching is generally high, staff do not consistently identify when children would benefit from interaction to extend their learning even further. For example, staff do not recognise the potential benefit of providing additional resources to challenge babies who are engrossed in water play.

Achievement: Expected standard

All children make steady progress from their starting points. Those with special educational needs and/or disabilities progress particularly well. They develop the skills and knowledge they need and catch up with their peers. Babies develop their physical skills in an environment that provides lots of opportunities to explore, move and play. Toddlers typically build confidence in using new vocabulary and taking turns. Pre-school children develop their fine motor skills through a range of indoor and outdoor activities such as digging, balancing, painting and writing with marker pens on whiteboards.

Children are generally confident communicators. They talk about, and share, their favourite activities enthusiastically. Children also enjoy sharing stories with adults and their friends, helping them to build their language skills, imagination and a love of reading. Children apply the skills they develop in their lives outside of the nursery. For example, children share French words they have learned with their parents and carers. Overall, children develop the skills, knowledge and resilience they need to prepare them for the next stage of their education.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard

Children typically behave well and play collaboratively with others. They are enthusiastic in their learning and engage positively in activities. For example, pre-school children love digging up the potatoes they have grown. They work together as a team while sharing the gardening tools.

Leaders and staff generally set high expectations for behaviour. While all staff provide gentle reminders and use positive reinforcement effectively, some are more effective than others at explaining the 'why' behind expectations and routines. As a result, some children do not always fully understand the consequences of their actions and how they may affect others.

Children develop secure relationships with leaders and staff. Babies seek out their key person to show them photos of their family, enjoying the positive engagement and responses they receive. Leaders and staff use inclusive approaches to help all children access routines successfully. They provide smaller groups or one-to-one support for those who find larger groups challenging, so that they can join in confidently alongside their peers.

Children understand daily routines well. They know when it is time to wash their hands and enjoy helping staff set the table ready for mealtimes. After breakfast each day, children brush their teeth, learning valuable oral health habits. When they arrive each morning, children self-register using photo cards. This promotes independence and establishes a clear, predictable transition from home to nursery. Leaders are adaptive and continually test new strategies to make transitions between play and mealtimes smoother and more engaging for children.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Expected standard

Leaders and staff typically prioritise children's wellbeing and respond to them with warmth and care. They create an inviting, welcoming environment where children happily arrive each morning. Close working relationships with parents and carers ensure that important information is shared. Staff know their children well and attend to them with kindness and respect. As a result, children feel safe, secure and valued.

Leaders and staff adapt environments appropriately so that children feel calm and comfortable. For example, in hot weather, babies play and splash in water trays while indoors to keep cool. During sleep time, calming music is used to create a peaceful space where children feel soothed. Staff manage sleep arrangements carefully and carry out regular checks to ensure comfort and safety. Staff also support children's emotional wellbeing. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities or barriers to their learning have access to their own quieter spaces. This supports them to regulate their emotions and take breaks from busy environments and larger groups.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

Leaders are highly reflective and have a clear oversight of the setting. They have a secure understanding of its strengths and areas of development. Leaders use ongoing monitoring to identify priorities and respond swiftly to children's changing needs. They have successfully identified the potential to raise the quality of teaching and consistency around behaviour management and are currently providing well-targeted support to address these issues. Although plans are being implemented, these are in their early stages and are not currently consistently embedded.

Children are at the centre of every decision leaders make. They care deeply about the children, staff and families they serve. Leaders set high expectations and lead with purpose, creating a culture where everyone works towards the same shared goals. Leaders have strengthened their own practice and skills through extensive training. This ongoing commitment to learning is embedded across the setting. Staff regularly undertake training that is impactful and based on the needs of the children. For example, some staff have attended additional training, such as learning sign language, to enable them to work more effectively with children who need support with communication skills. This has been shared across the setting. Other staff have attended training to enhance the curriculum in the baby room.

Leaders place a sharp focus on staff wellbeing. They highly value their team and strive to make staff feel supported and respected in all aspects of their work. Staff comment on how meaningful they feel the support is and how it helps them with their practice and overall wellbeing. Leaders have an open-door policy, where staff feel secure and confident to seek support and guidance.

Leaders have built excellent relationships with parents and carers. They communicate openly and encourage families to play an active role in their children's learning. The introduction of a new communication system has strengthened these relationships, allowing parents, and even grandparents living overseas, to follow children's progress and feel involved in nursery life. Leaders promote regular attendance and punctuality through clear expectations and a rigorous attendance policy. This fosters good habits for future learning, reinforcing to parents, carers and children that education is valuable and that their presence matters.