The Magic Treehouse Day Nursery Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy in this warm and nurturing environment. Staff form warm bonds with children. Children benefit from high-quality, engaging interactions with staff. Children approach staff throughout the day, to enthusiastically explain their play or for a cuddle if they need comfort or reassurance.

Children feel safe and secure at nursery. Staff ensure that they understand routines very well. For example, children refer to the pictorial timetable to explain to their peers what will happen next in the day. This helps children to understand what to expect during their time at nursery.

Children behave very well. Staff use a variety of techniques to support children to display positive behaviours. For example, staff give children responsibilities such as attaching the date to the calendar during circle time to help them to remain engaged. Children respond well to the positive praise they receive from staff. Staff talk to children about their emotions to help them to express how they are feeling. For example, a member of staff explores with a child why they feel sad. This supports children to develop their understanding of their emotions.

Staff are ambitious for children's learning. They plan how to help children progress in their individual learning journeys through play. For example, staff support children to use their imagination to extend their play as they pretend to cook with natural resources.

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

• Leaders implement an effective programme of learning for communication and language. Staff listen to what children are saying and model back to them correct language, extending what they are saying. Staff get down to children's level and narrate as they play. This supports children to extend their sentences and build their vocabulary.
• Staff support children to develop their love of books through immersing the children in a focused 'story of the week'. Staff skilfully link this story back to children's play and read the stories multiple times. For example, staff link children's play with animals back to 'The Gruffalo' book. This helps children to begin to retell the story themselves and develop their language skills.
• Staff help children to make good progress in their physical development. Children carry blocks as they design their own obstacle course, developing their strength and coordination. They then climb and balance over the obstacle course they have made. Children are supported to develop their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. For example, they push, pull and squeeze their play dough or roll it out and press down with shape cutters to make shapes. This means that children develop their physical skills well.
• Staff have a good understanding of the progress their key children have made and their next steps in their learning journey. They plan learning opportunities to support children to achieve these next steps.
• Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities or those who need extra help well. They use a variety of interventions to support children to achieve their learning goals. For example, during 'Bucket Time', children develop their attention and turn-taking skills as they eagerly wait to see what staff will take out of the bucket next. Leaders work well with external professionals, such as speech and language therapists, to understand the most suitable targets and strategies to support individual children. However, on occasion, they do not share this information consistently with the key person, so staff do not always have the benefit of this information to use it to support the children.
• Leaders and staff build strong parent partnerships. They seek the views of parents and respond to these to improve the setting. For example, by increasing the amount of access children have to the forest area. Staff communicate well with parents, both verbally and via an app to provide them with updates about what children have been doing during the day.
• Leaders understand what good practice looks like. They work closely with the local authority and other relevant organisations to keep their knowledge up to date. Leaders support staff to improve their practice through modelling of good practice, courses and in-house training. This enables them to ensure that care and teaching for the children is now of a good standard.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure that key persons know the recommendations of any external professionals who work with their key children and use these to consistently support children.