The Udder Pre School Day Nursery Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive and flourish in their development at this nursery that has outdoor learning at its heart. All children, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make rapid progress. Children are excited to take part in a wealth of interesting activities and they are highly motivated and eager to join in and learn.

Children behave exceptionally well and respond very well to the high expectations staff have for them. Staff use children's interests to plan exceptionally well. Children are interested in volcanoes. They talk with staff and look at pictures and models. They go out into the fields and carry out experiments to make a volcano. Children's lively enthusiasm is skilfully extended by staff, who support their language development exceptionally well. This results in children confidently talking about 'eruptions, magma and lava'.

Children clearly show that they are happy and settled at nursery. One- and two-year olds display secure emotional attachments to staff, who gently comfort them if they become upset or anxious. Three- and four-year olds play games with staff during their walks around the farm that successfully help them learn about keeping safe. They learn to clear away activities when they have finished to ensure the wildlife comes to no harm.

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

• The leadership team work exceptionally well with the staff to ensure they receive focused and highly effective support for their professional development. They have a highly reflective approach and provide excellent training and coaching for staff. This has successfully raised staff confidence and knowledge levels and resulted in significant improvements to teaching and staff interactions with children.
• Staff and children's well-being are given high priority. When they returned after time off, resulting from the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, leaders put measures in place to help staff feel safe on their return to work. Staff provide very effective reassurance for parents to help their children feel secure and to settle quickly back into nursery routine.
• Children at this nursery are exceptionally well prepared for their future learning. Staff find out detailed information from parents about the experiences children have at home. They are highly successful in broadening these experiences. For example, some children have fewer opportunities to be outside experiencing nature. Staff enable them to collect eggs from chickens, pick rhubarb, see the horses and count the Longhorn cows in an adjacent farmer's field.
• The leadership team have a very clear intent for what they want children to learn. Staff have excellent interaction with children during their play and this contributes significantly to their learning. Staff are highly successful in engaging children and linking their experiences together. For example, children used the rhubarb they had picked and eggs they collected as ingredients to bake cakes that they later had for a snack. Children confidently talked about where the ingredients came from and how they made them into the cakes.
• Staff show genuine care and respect towards the children and treat them all as individuals. They know each child very well which significantly contributes to meeting each child's needs. Staff support children with SEND exceptionally well. This group of children gain in confidence to take part in the full range of activities. Staff help children learn that everyone is different, and children show care and concern for one another. Children develop clear friendships and work exceptionally well together. For example, during the volcano experiment all children were actively involved and fully included by staff. Children understand about taking turns and remain fully engaged, watching while their friends are busy doing their job.
• Partnerships with parents are extremely strong and effective. Staff provide parents with regular information about their children's progress. They actively encourage parents to share information from home. This contributes to children receiving a highly consistent approach to their care needs and learning. Parents speak very positively about the nursery. They comment on how their children are making rapid progress in their social skills. Parents say they can see how their child's knowledge is increasing, for example, knowing the names of different flowers such as snowdrops.