The Mall Nursery and Creche

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle in quickly to this busy and vibrant nursery. They demonstrate confidence as they play and experiment with the range of toys and activities available to them. Children make good progress in their communication and language skills. Staff sing songs, read them stories and use new words to extend their vocabulary. Older children learn about rhyming words, as they listen carefully to the sounds. Younger children join in the repetitive phrases of familiar stories. Children build tall towers with blocks while staff use mathematical language. This helps them begin to understand the concepts of tall and high in a playful way.

Children have experiences that reflect their own lives. Younger children wash dollies with flannels, learning to care for others. When children label a bulb of garlic as an onion, staff encourage them to feel and smell the vegetables to explore the differences between them. This helps children to make sense of what happens at home. Children delight in identifying trains and aeroplanes nearby. They imagine where the passengers have been and are going. Children practise cutting up their snack and pouring their own drinks. Younger children identify their coats and older children attempt to put them on themselves. This helps children to develop some of their independence skills.

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

• Staff know children very well. They make time to spend with each of their key children during their sessions. For example, they change their key children's nappies and go outside in key groups together. This helps children build strong, secure attachments, so that they are ready for learning.
• Leaders work hard to support staff's professional development and well-being. Staff report that it is a lovely place to work. This drives them to develop their practice and provision for the children. However, a range of professional development opportunities is not yet embedded for staff to develop their teaching skills to the highest level.
• Parents praise the nursery staff for all they do. They tell the inspector how the team 'go above and beyond' to help support their family. They receive regular updates about their children and work together to benefit children's overall well-being and education. For example, staff go to the local library with parents and their children to experience the story and rhyme sessions.
• Children are learning how to keep themselves safe. They follow careful instruction to stay together as a group as they walk through the shopping centre. They hold onto the handrail as they walk up and down flights of stairs to the rooftop garden.
• The staff help children remember the 'golden rules' by talking to them and showing them picture cards. This helps children to learn about what behaviour is socially acceptable. However, they do not encourage older children to think about the reasons why they behave in certain ways. As a result, children do not always understand the potential impact of their behaviour.
• Staff who have specific responsibilities for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities support these children effectively. The use of additional funding for children is carefully considered. Staff take into account the needs of children and families attending and choose things that complement their home lives, such as hiring the pantomime company to perform.
• Children practise skills that support their overall physical development. They push brooms in a sweeping motion and push wheelbarrows in the garden, developing their coordination. Children stretch their arms as they chalk on a board on the wall and manipulate the chalks to make marks.
• Staff have a good understanding of child development and how to promote children's learning through sensory play. They role model rolling and squishing play dough, encouraging children to watch them and copy building up their small-muscle strength. As children splash in water and mix it with dirt to make mud, they recite familiar phrases from favourite stories.
• The staff team work together effectively. They have implemented ideas to develop children's learning. For example, they have planted seeds in the garden to bring in more natural resources for children to experience. They talk to the children about where food comes from and which foods are healthy.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• refine the focus for professional development further to encourage all staff to develop their teaching skills to the highest levels
• support staff to help older children understand the consequences of different types of behaviour and the impact this can have on others.