The Fledglings

Inclusion: Strong standard

There are robust and secure procedures in place to identify children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) or other barriers to learning. Staff ensure that they gather information from parents and previous settings and follow this up with rigorous monitoring and observations to identify gaps in learning and differing starting points. Staff work tirelessly to ensure that children with SEND make rapid progress. For example, they provide adapted resources and one-to-one time alongside regular access to specialist staff such as educational psychologists, occupational therapists and play therapists. Regular high-quality assessments ensure that these strategies have a high impact on the children's progress. Staff work well with outside agencies, such as hospitals and other settings, to ensure optimum support is put into place so that children make the best possible progress.

Leaders fully support the families of children with SEND, who are extremely pleased at how well their children settle into the setting and at the super progress they make. Children with SEND have many opportunities to access what they need to progress, whether that is places to deregulate emotionally or the space and time to process what they have been learning.

Leaders spend additional funding carefully to ensure it has the highest impact on disadvantaged children. They ensure that staff receive high-quality training to further support children's learning.

Curriculum and teaching: Strong standard

Leaders have created a highly ambitious curriculum that is sequenced to ensure that children build on prior learning. It is child-centred, play based and focuses on outdoor learning. Leaders aim for children to learn through real-life experiences that they might not normally have. For example, children care for chickens and sell the eggs, using profits to feed the chickens. The aims of the curriculum are to prepare children for life, including any further stages of learning. This means fostering a love of learning, developing independence and confidence.

There is a deep focus on communication and language. High-quality interactions with children help to develop their understanding and vocabulary. Children learn mathematical language through play and explicit teaching. For example, they measure items and talk about metres and centimetres. Extremely high priority is given to children's physical and personal, social and emotional development. Children understand about emotions. For example, children speak to visitors with confidence and tell them they are happy because it is a lovely sunny day. Children have opportunities to climb, run and balance on equipment.

Staff are consistently highly responsive to the children's needs and ensure that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are included and supported. Staff take every opportunity to deepen children's understanding, and extremely high-quality teaching is embedded throughout the setting. Teaching is tailored to the individual child through rigorous assessment and next steps.

Achievement: Strong standard

Children feel incredibly confident and secure within the setting. This gives them a connectedness with staff that enables them to be open to learning and to achieve extremely well. Children make rapid progress through all areas of the curriculum, especially in their language and communication skills. They can speak confidently with a wide vocabulary, incorporating words such as 'mystery' and learning the names of the herbs they use in their play. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities make particularly swift progress in communication and language skills, especially considering their starting points, due to clear targets and ongoing assessment. Children can recall prior learning, particularly in remembering letter sounds taught.

Children are extremely well prepared for their next stage of learning as they develop the confidence, independence and high self-esteem for whatever next faces them. Transitions within the same setting are seamless, and other transitions are well managed for the individual needs of the child. Overall, children achieve extremely well.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Staff have created a highly inclusive environment where children have a secure understanding of their own autonomy. Children feel extremely safe and can fully express themselves, knowing that staff will listen carefully and act on their ideas. Leaders and staff place high priority on emotional wellbeing. Children learn to converse between themselves and other adults with absolute respect. They feel a strong sense of belonging not only to the setting but also to the community as they grow vegetables for the community hub and regularly chat with older members of the local care home, learning about what life was like for them growing up. Behaviour is exemplary, and children are taught specifically how to play collaboratively. They develop strong negotiation skills and have respectful boundaries to each other. For example, children help each other to play new games. They put collaborative shows on for staff.

Children and staff have incredibly secure relationships where children feel full of confidence and happiness. They are fully engaged with their activities and develop the emotional language necessary to get on with others. Staff fully consider the children's stage of development and individual needs when supporting children.

Leaders work hard to promote attendance, and absences are rare. Children notice when their friends are not present. Leaders include the importance of attendance and punctuality in their regular newsletters to parents.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

The welfare and wellbeing of children are the absolute heart of this setting. Leaders and staff are extremely passionate about children's mental health, and this is at the basis and the forefront of every aspect of the setting. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities or other barriers to learning are specifically expertly supported. All children have areas to be still and quiet, where they can learn to manage their own feelings. Children's understanding of managing their emotions and their sense of emotional wellbeing are extraordinary for their ages and stages of development. Staff are extremely flexible to the children's routines, which fully support their individual needs. Parents state they feel the support for their children and themselves is of the highest possible. Staff have built superb relationships with the children and their families.

Children have a solid understanding of their own health. They query the amount of sugar in the Mother's Day scones and recognise that physical activity, rest and healthy eating are important to their development. Staff invite dentists into the setting for World Oral Health Day and organise weekly physical education and yoga sessions for the children alongside their physical play in their outdoor environment.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

Leaders have a clear vision of what they want to achieve for children and work tirelessly to attain that. They are passionate about outdoor learning and nature. Children's emotional wellbeing is of the highest priority, and every act that leaders make is to deepen and strengthen children's ability to be independent, self-determined and to be empowered. Their aim for children to be self-reliant and have the capacity to regulate their own emotions and to get along with others runs throughout the whole setting. Staff have been carefully recruited to share in the leaders' vision. Leaders fully understand their own strengths and have plans in place to further extend and develop these strengths.

Leaders are highly responsive to the changing needs of the children, who have extremely different backgrounds and contexts. Children receive bespoke support according to their own individual needs, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

Staff wellbeing is incredibly high, and staff say they are extremely well supported by leaders in their professional development. Leaders monitor the quality of the training and the impact on the children by regular supervisions with staff and assessments of children. Staff appreciate the access to external support for their wellbeing should they need it. Leaders work closely with the local authority, other settings and agencies.