The Grange Montessori

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children access a rich, enabling environment, where their individual personalities and characters are passionately nurtured and developed. Children are cared for by highly skilled and experienced staff, who know their key children well. Children benefit from carefully planned learning experiences that build upon what they already know and can do. For example, children who have been learning about mixing colours are provided with primary coloured paints and real cut flowers to experiment with. One child proudly explains that they need more blue paint to mix with red and yellow because she is mixing a brown muddy puddle.

Children's behaviour is excellent, and very young children demonstrate the ability to share, take turns and cooperate with their friends. For example, children in the room for two-year olds listen carefully to staff, who help them to negotiate and compromise with one another. Children are able to consider suggested options, ask questions and show empathy for the feelings of others. All children are keen to help to tidy up and relish the responsibility of using low-level sinks to wash resources in the classroom.

All children demonstrate high levels of engagement in the activities and experiences available. Pre-school children remain engrossed in their learning for significant periods of time. This allows them the time and space to practise newly developed skills and to test out their ideas and understanding. All children make exceptional progress in their learning and development.

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

• Leaders and managers have successfully shared their high education aspirations and expected levels of behaviour with the wider staff team, children and their families. This means children are benefiting from consistent messages and support in managing their feelings and behaviour.
• Staff are clear on what they want children to know and learn. Children benefit from a carefully sequenced curriculum, and their next steps are known by the staff team and shared with their parents. This helps children to make rapid progress and reach their individual potential.
• Support for children's language and communication is excellent. Children develop a rich and extensive vocabulary in relation to their age. For example, children doing observational drawings of real fruit and vegetables are asked to describe what they see. When describing the colours, they use words such as 'teal' and 'beige'. This provides children with the vocabulary they need to succeed in their next phase of education.
• Children are provided with high-quality adult interactions. Staff take the time to explain new concepts to children and provide examples linked to prior learning to help them understand and begin to make connections of their own. Staff allow children the time they need to reflect and consider information before asking questions. They then provide experiences for them to practise and master newly acquired knowledge and skills.
• Children have ample opportunities to learn about being healthy, and they thoroughly enjoy activities that involve exploring real objects like fruit and vegetables in the role-play, creative and mathematical areas. In addition, children love to access the forest school area, where they can develop first-hand knowledge and understanding of the world.
• Staff benefit from regular supervision, coaching and support. This provides leaders and managers with good oversight of workloads and staff well-being. Furthermore, managers provide staff with valuable feedback on observations of their practice, which further promotes consistency in the high quality of teaching and learning.
• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and for children who speak English as an additional language is excellent. Staff are proactive in sourcing specialist advice and support for children and families. Children benefit from targeted interventions where a gap in their learning or development has been identified. For example, staff work with advisory teachers and educational psychologists to develop their skills and knowledge and implement strategies to support individual children's needs.
• Leaders and managers provide parents with an abundance of information and resources for them to support their children's learning and development at home. Parents feel absolutely confident that their children are extremely well cared for, receive an exceptional, high-quality education and are kept safe at the nursery.