The Haven Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are beginning to understand about the world they live in. Staff plan exciting activities that help children to learn about their community. For example, they enjoy riding on the land train to the local town. Additionally, children celebrate a range of festivals such as Chinese New Year, which teaches them about other countries and cultures.

Children are happy, confident and show good levels of independence. This is seen when children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), successfully manage their own personal needs. This prepares them well for starting school. Staff warmly welcome children when they arrive, which includes saying 'hello' in their home languages. Children develop strong bonds with their key person and show that they feel safe and secure at the nursery.

Children are respectful to their friends and adults. They enjoy each other's company and play well together. This is seen as they laugh and chat when waiting for their friends to put on their coats to go outside. Children demonstrate their good social skills, such as when they successfully share resources and take turns.

Children, including those who speak English as an additional language, develop their communication skills well. Staff use a range of strategies, such as signing and picture cards, to help children understand and communicate their needs. This supports children's emotional well-being.

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

• Overall, parent partnerships are positive. Parents are enthusiastic about the care their children receive and comment on the good progress their children have made. However, on occasion, the day-to-day communication between staff and parents is not fully effective. For example, sometimes, parents find it difficult to arrange meetings with staff, resulting in delays to sharing information. Additionally, at times, staff do not consistently share learning ideas with parents and carers to enable them to support learning at home.
• Children enjoy many opportunities to build on their early writing skills. This is seen as children thoroughly enjoy making marks on the floor outside with rainwater. Additionally, staff across the nursery nurture a love of books and reading. They read stories in an engaging manner and use props to support children to understand new words, such as 'snake'. This helps children to develop their early literacy skills.
• Staff plan flexible activities to develop children's learning. They successfully adapt teaching and activities to follow the changing interests of children.. For example, staff provide sensory experiences for the babies following them showing an interest in hunting for bugs in the garden. Babies hunt for toy bugs in jelly and staff encourage their vocabulary introducing words such as 'squidgy' and 'wobbly'.
• Staff use daily transition times well to extend children's learning. For example, children enjoy counting to 30, while waiting to wash their hands for lunch. This improves their counting skills.
• Staff give children consistent messages about behaviour expectations. They support children of all ages to follow the nursery rules, such as using kind hands. This helps children to manage their own behaviour well.
• Staff teach children about emotions, which helps them to understand how they are feeling. For example, during small-group activities, staff invite children to share how they are feeling with their friends. They encourage children to think about how they might help people who are sad to feel better.
• Children learn about how to keep themselves healthy. They enjoy daily opportunities to play outside where they learn about nature and promote their physical skills. Additionally, staff teach children about the importance of good oral health. For instance, they support children to clean their teeth after lunch.
• The leadership team is aware of the potential impact that the pandemic has had on children's learning and development. They have focused staff development on helping children to make progress in these areas. For example, staff have attended communication training to support children to improve their speech and language skills.
• Leaders and staff use assessment well to monitor children's progress and identify any emerging concerns. They swiftly refer to outside agencies to help children, including those with SEND, to get the help they need to make continued progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen communication with parents to promote effective two-way sharing of information and to support parents to continue their child's learning at home.