The Nursery (Leyland) Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff build good relationships with children. They gather lots of information from families when children first start to attend. This helps children to settle into the nursery. Children are happy in the nursery and participate well in activities. Staff engage well with children. They observe the things that children do and listen to the things that children say. Staff respond in appropriate ways to what they know about children. Children are keen to be involved in activities. For instance, during a colour mixing activity, children are eager to share their ideas about what colours might be created when they are mixed together. Children demonstrate positive attitudes to learning.

Staff provide children with a curriculum that builds upon their current knowledge and skills. They recognise that children who are disadvantaged and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) require extra support. They work closely with parents and other professionals to provide children with a educational programme appropriate to their individual needs. This helps all children make good progress in their learning and development and they are well prepared for their next stage of learning.

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

• Staff recognise the importance of supporting children to feel emotionally secure. They work with a trained counsellor to provide sessions with children where they use puppets to help children explore their emotions. Children learn about why they might experience particular emotions. They develop strategies to use when they are feeling emotional.
• Staff recognise that children's communication and language skills are a foundation to other areas of learning. Therefore, they focus on supporting children in this area of learning. They provide children with small group activities where children have the opportunity to listen, understand and speak. Children enjoy stories and song time. Children have good levels of concentration and demonstrate that they are developing their understanding.
• Staff teach children about the world in which they live. Children play with dolls that have hearing aids and talk about the purpose of hearing aids. They read books about what makes people different to each other. Children have positive attitudes to the differences between people.
• Staff gain a wealth of information from parents to enable them to understand children's individual needs and family backgrounds. However, staff do not always consider how they can make sure that children see themselves represented in the setting from the outset. This does not fully support their sense of belonging and a celebration of individual heritage.
• Staff provide children with experiences that help them develop the skills they need to succeed in life. Children grow and nurture foods, such as carrots, which they then eat. They use their imagination outdoors when making potions. Children investigate, explore, show curiosity and use previous knowledge they have gained by making links to experiences they are engaging in.
• Staff enjoy working in this nursery. Leaders implement a programme of supervision and training to help develop the practice and knowledge of staff. However, current strategies are not always used to best effect to help staff to develop their teaching skills and practice to a consistently high level across the team.
• Staff help children to grow in confidence and self-esteem. They offer children positive praise and encouragement for the things they do well. Staff make comments to children, such as, 'good listening' and 'nice sharing'. This helps to reinforce the behaviours expected from children. Children are self-assured and behave well.
• Staff establish an effective curriculum to enhance children's physical skills. Children play outdoors each day where they control their bodies on bikes. Indoors, they use tools such as rolling pins to flatten dough. Children are developing their small and large physical movements.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• embrace children's home cultures and heritages further to support their sense of belonging
• strengthen the individual support, mentoring and coaching of all staff to improve their skills and the quality of teaching.