The Southville Centre Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and cheerful. They separate from their parents and carers with ease as the kind and caring staff come to greet them at the door. Children demonstrate feeling safe and secure, they form good relationships with the adults who care for them, and they make nice friendships with their peers. Staff are very respectful towards children especially when they are carrying out care practices. For instance, they explain to children why they need to change their clothes when they are wet.

Leaders and staff provide a curriculum that is planned to build on what children know and can do, to help them to develop the skills that they need for their future learning. Older children become immersed in their play as they work out how to use funnels and pipes to transport water. Younger children explore how they can use resources to make different sounds. Overall children develop problem-solving skills and a can-do attitude to their learning.

Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and children are aware of routines and how they should behave. When children struggle to manage their feelings or if they have been hurt, staff talk to children about how they are feeling or how their actions have made their friends feel.

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

• The highly committed leaders and staff team have made the necessary improvements to the provision since the last inspection. Leaders work together to monitor staff practice and to provide consistent support for children with the delivery of their curriculum. Recent changes to the deployment of staff and the organisation of rooms help children to have a calmer learning environment. Leaders aspire to achieve the best opportunities for children and their families. They work with staff to ensure that additional funding is used well to provide support for the children it is intended for.
• Staff know the children very well, they observe and assess children's progress closely to enable them to target their teaching and to identify gaps in children's learning. Leaders recognise the importance of early intervention when they identify that children have delays in their development or special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They have created a team of staff to work with the special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) to provide children with more targeted support. The SENCo works closely with staff to put plans in place for children's needs.
• Partnerships with parents are well developed. Parents are full of praise about the service that they receive. Parents say that their children enjoy attending and they are well informed about their children's time in the nursery. Leaders work closely with parents to ensure that children can access extra sessions such as, outdoor learning opportunities and music groups. This broadens children's experiences and promotes their learning further. However, these partnerships could be extended further, to involve parents more with supporting children's targeted learning at home.
• Leaders and staff provide children with healthy food and a range of opportunities for physical play, both inside and outdoors in the gardens. The youngest children enjoy making marks in the sand and using tools to scoop and pour. Older children enjoy pretending to be monkeys as they balance and climb through the bushes in the garden. Children enjoy working with staff to do gardening where they dig and water their plants.
• Staff help children to gain a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe and to recognise when they might be at risk. Staff talk to children about where they could hurt themselves and remind them to be cautious as they play.
• Overall, staff interactions with children are strong, staff recognise when they can promote children's learning further, and they use children's interests well. Children enjoy stories and songs, even the youngest children join in with actions and signs demonstrating a good understanding. Older children enjoy taking part in sorting, comparing, and measuring as staff promote their mathematical awareness. However, staff do not organise and deliver group times as well, children struggle to be involved, some children continue to fidget and talk as staff struggle to keep them focussed.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• make better use of the partnerships with parents to involve them in supporting children's targeted learning at home
• develop the organisation of groups times to promote children's focus and maximise learning opportunities.