The Kid Company LLP

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the nursery full of enthusiasm and excitement to begin their day. Staff have a deep and insightful knowledge of every child in their care. This enables them to adapt the environment and routines so that all children thrive and feel happy and secure. Children settle quickly as staff foster exceptionally strong bonds with children and their families. Staff have extremely high expectations for children's behaviour and support them through excellent role-modelling and sensitive guidance. Children consistently use polite manners and show respect and appreciation for one another and the natural world. For example, older children willingly offer assistance when they notice a friend needs help. Staff promote children's self-esteem and resilience incredibly well. Children demonstrate exceptional drive and determination as they solve problems and learn to do things independently. This ensures children are extremely well prepared for the next stage in their education.

Dedicated and passionate leaders skilfully plan a curriculum that is precisely focused on the needs of individual children and their evolving interests and developmental stages. This means that all children remain highly motivated and engaged in their learning. Children seize opportunities to ask questions and engage in detailed conversations to extend their learning further. For example, when participating in a group story time, children compare the similarities between a radish and a beetroot. They use a wide and expressive vocabulary as they recall growing their own vegetables in the nursery garden. Children delight in sharing their knowledge with others.

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

• Inspirational leaders and managers ensure staff are highly motivated and strive to achieve the highest standards. Staff exude enthusiasm for their roles and continually review their practice and share ideas. This helps staff to build on their passion for creating exceptionally stimulating learning environments for children to explore. The management team leads by example. The team provides dedicated coaching to support staff to develop very strong teaching strategies and practice. Staff further extend their professional development through carefully planned training opportunities.
• Children become immersed in an array of high-quality learning experiences. From a young age, they learn to count objects with confidence, progressing to mastering concepts such as early addition and subtraction. For example, children delight in setting up their own ice-cream parlour. They learn to handle money in meaningful situations, counting out coins to correspond with familiar numbers and recognising when they need 'one more' to make the correct total. They demonstrate secure mathematical awareness as they share out fruit at snack time and exclaim with delight, 'Look! I have cut the orange in half.'
• Exceptional partnership working is a key strength of the nursery. Parents speak extremely highly of the nursery and comment on the immense progress that children make during their time there. Parents recognise that children develop essential skills that enable them to be confident learners. They value the family community created by the team as a whole, which helps children to flourish and succeed.
• Children excel in their ability to convey meaning to others through written communication. During play, they confidently make marks and record letters and words they have learned. They use labels displayed around the room to support with spelling. Children show a deep understanding of the different purposes of writing. For example, they create greetings cards to celebrate a birthday, write lists and develop menus during role-play activities.
• All children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, reach their full potential as they receive the highest levels of care and support. The staff are highly skilled and committed to ensuring that the ambitious curriculum is thoughtfully adapted to meet individual needs. Any additional needs are swiftly identified through precise assessment, and early support is put into place. Additional funding is carefully monitored to ensure it has the most impact on securing the best outcomes for children.
• Children have immense fun exploring the garden. Their physical development is incredibly well supported through a wide variety of challenging and engaging experiences. Older babies relish moving their bodies in different ways. They giggle as they crawl under objects and squeeze slices of lemon in their hands. Children learn to manage risks and carefully consider how best to keep themselves and others safe. For example, very young children navigate big steps by sitting and sliding their bodies down. Older children learn to use wheeled toys appropriately, following a one-way system to avoid collisions.
• Children are highly confident and skilled communicators. They benefit from a language-rich environment and high-quality interactions with staff. Children use language to express themselves in a wide range of situations. Regular storytelling and singing foster children's deep appreciation of books and heighten their awareness of rhyme. Children use ambitious vocabulary as they describe events and engage in imaginative play.