The Tree House Children's Centre

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive excited to learn at the home-from-home setting created by staff. Children of all ages develop strong relationships with staff and settle quickly in their care. Children are happy to explore the environment and interact with visitors. They seek a reassuring look or cuddle from staff when needed. They listen well to staff. They show good attention skills and join in with familiar phrases from stories such as 'The Gruffulo'. Children are independent from a young age. Children aged under two years wash their hands without support and they help to put their outdoor clothing on. Older children choose and pour drinks without needing support. They recognise and explain to others that different-coloured jugs contain different drink options.

Children are confident and determined to try things for themselves. They concentrate intently while exploring a wide range of outdoor opportunities and developing their physical skills. Children persevere to climb and balance on large tractor tyres and in trees. Staff teach children how to jump down carefully and make sure that they know how to keep themselves safe. Children work together to roll a member of staff inside a large play drainage pipe. They exclaim they are 'really strong'. The children and staff all laugh and suggest it is like a washing machine on a spin cycle. Staff praise children for discovering how to make it roll as a team. This motivates the children to imitate this play, using smaller and larger pipes and comparing the movements to other washing machine actions.

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

• Staff know the children very well, including their learning and development needs. They observe children throughout the day and work closely as a team to assess what children need to learn next. Staff focus on supporting any potential gaps in children's knowledge and experiences, including those of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Staff engage children through their interests. For instance, babies enjoy filling and emptying bags during play. Staff extend this and play a game with babies, using paper bags. They encourage babies to tap their knees while singing, 'What's inside the bag?' Children all find a toy in their bag and staff encourage them to sing related songs. For example, a child holds up a spider puppet and staff sing, 'There's a spider on my head.' They help children learn how to follow actions and identify parts of their body.
• Staff plan experiences children may not get elsewhere. They teach children how to use tools such as screwdrivers to build new wheelbarrows they have purchased. Pre-school children develop their hand muscles and hand-to-eye coordination.
• Overall, staff interact well with children and support them to develop their communication skills. Staff discuss with two-year-old children what they are doing as they pretend to make medicine with coloured water. Staff ask what is in their medicine. They encourage them to use vocabulary including 'secret ingredient' and 'headache'. However, high-quality interactions with children are not consistent across the staff team. At times, staff ask questions that are too direct and use language that is too complex for some children. This does not help children to practise speaking or develop their understanding of what words mean.
• On the whole, children behave well and develop close friendships. Staff remind children to say 'please' and 'thank you' when responding to others. Children know and happily follow familiar routines of the day. Staff praise children for 'good listening' and for patiently waiting their turn to have a go on the slide. However, occasionally, staff do not make it clear to children what they expect of them. Staff do not always stop unwanted behaviour. On occasions, they do not explain to children why they should not throw resources or take them from other children without asking.
• Leaders and managers are passionate about developing the staff team. Staff of all levels undertake a broad range of training opportunities. The manager works alongside staff daily and models high-quality practice. Leaders meet with staff regularly to evaluate the setting and plan how to implement new ideas.
• Staff work effectively alongside parents and carers on all aspects of children's development. Parents comment that staff care for children like they are their own family. They say that staff provide age-appropriate learning opportunities on death, divorce and other topics children may not learn about elsewhere.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's understanding of how to manage children's behaviour effectively and consistently
• improve the consistency of staff's interactions to further develop children's understanding and communication skills.