The Goslings Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy coming to the nursery and develop good attitudes to learning. For instance, younger children excitedly join in with planting seeds, as they learn how to grow beans and lentils. Older children develop good early literacy skills. They enjoy making up stories and share these with their friends, as they take turns listening to each other speak. Children behave extremely well and play cooperatively with their friends. Staff promote children's personal, social and emotional development well. They recognise when younger children need support to help them settle. They provide cuddles and reassurance as children grow in confidence and settle happily into the nursery day.

The manager and staff create an inviting and well-organised environment for children to play and learn in. They have a good knowledge of the curriculum they offer children and have high expectations of what they can achieve. The manager and her team are well qualified, knowledgeable and experienced. They understand how children like to learn and provide interesting, exciting and challenging activities, which build on their knowledge and skills well, overall. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive high levels of support. Additional funding is used effectively, such as helping to provide one-to-one care for children, to help support the good progress they make.

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

• The provider, manager and staff work well together. Since registration, they have continued to develop the nursery school, building on the learning experiences children receive. The manager leads her team well. Staff say they feel valued and appreciated. This contributes towards the positive and upbeat morale that staff display within the nursery school. Effective staff supervision, coaching and support enables staff to continue to develop their knowledge and skills. For instance, recent training about 'schema' learning styles has helped staff to understand how children like to learn and how activities can be tailored to incorporate this.
• Staff know their key children well and teaching is good. Staff keep a close check on children's progress and plan activities to help develop children's skills and knowledge well, overall. For instance, as staff read children stories, they encourage those children who can read to tell parts of the story. Children think about what might happen next, as they confidently share this with their friends. They relish opportunities to think about favourite characters in their own made-up stories and confidently speak in larger groups. However, sometimes younger children are not able to concentrate as well in larger groups. This hinders how staff can help them benefit from these good teaching opportunities.
• Children benefit from a wide variety of opportunities to learn about the natural world, through hands-on experiences. Staff provide activities which help children learn about how plants grow and how to tend to them. For instance, children plant lentils and water the potatoes and tomato plants they are growing. Children retell what they learn to their friends and other adults. For instance, they talk about how tomatoes need warm sun and water to help them grow.
• Parents speak very positively about the nursery school and how staff support their children's personal, social and emotional well-being. They say that 'staff make them feel their children are valued as a person in their own right and they appreciate all the little things that make them unique'. Staff speak to parents and carers each day to share children's key achievements with them. However, where opportunities present, staff do not identify ways to share more in-depth information about children's progress with parents, to further support children's learning and development.
• Children are very keen to be independent and opportunities for them to practise skills to support this are used well by staff. For instance, as children get ready to play in the garden they learn how to put on and fasten their coats. Children learn how to keep themselves safe and follow good routines, to promote their physical well-being. For instance, children wash their hands before they sit for meal times and learn the importance of drinking water regularly, to keep themselves hydrated in warmer weather.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the organisation of large group times to fully engage all children and support them to benefit from the good teaching opportunities
• strengthen ways to share more in-depth information about children's progress with parents, to further promote continuity in children's learning and development.