The Wye Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at this friendly and welcoming nursery happy and eager to see their friends. Staff greet children with genuine warmth and affection. This helps children to feel emotionally secure at the nursery. Children are motivated in their learning. They show delight and pleasure as they join in with the activities on offer. For example, babies jump up and down with delight when staff suggest they sing some songs and rhymes. They confidently join in with the familiar phrases and actions. Toddlers enjoy sitting in small groups listening to well read stories. Pre-school children develop their physical skills as they use their hands to manipulate dough creating a range of different shapes.

Staff use frequent praise and encouragement. This helps children to behave well. Children play cooperatively and show kindness and consideration towards each other. Staff have high expectations for all children attending. They want all children to be happy, confident and achieve the skills they are capable of. As a result, all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) show positive attitudes towards learning and make good progress in their development.

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

• The quality of teaching is consistently good throughout the nursery. Children's communication and language skills are supported particularly well. Staff engage children in frequent conversations and discussions. They encourage children to share their ideas and thoughts. Staff repeat and reinforce new words to young children to help them extend on their growing vocabulary. As a result, children are confident communicators.
• Staff have a good understanding of how young children learn and develop. They get to know children well and use their interests to plan activities they know children will enjoy. There is a good range of varied play experiences available for children of all ages. However, some activities and experiences are not always planned to fully support children to achieve their next steps in learning, to help children make even more progress in their development.
• Staff plan a good balance of adult-led and child-initiated activities. Children happily join in with these. Children frequently include staff in their play and staff respond well to this. This helps children to remain motived and helps extend their learning further. However, there are times when children's concentration skills are not fully promoted due to distractions caused by background noise and other avoidable distractions.
• Support for children with SEND is a strength of the nursery. The special educational needs coordinator works closely with staff and other professionals to ensure children have the right support at the earliest opportunity. Staff working one-to-one with children with SEND know children very well and understand their individual needs. This ensures all children make the progress they are capable of according to their starting points.
• Children's independence is encouraged from an early age. Staff encourage older babies to help during the daily routines. They praise babies for actively cooperating with nappy changes. Older children are encouraged to help with tasks, such as clearing away the mats after mealtimes and helping to put the lunch boxes away.
• Children benefit from regular fresh air and exercise. Children of all ages enjoy spending time outside in the garden. They have opportunities to practise their physical skills as they negotiate the climbing frame, race around the track on wheeled toys and learn to kick a football to one another. Their good health is further promoted as they are encouraged to follow good hygiene routines, learning the importance of washing their hands before eating meals and after using the toilet.
• Parent partnership is good. Parents express how well informed they are. They value the information shared with them via the online application and through the detailed verbal discussions they have at collection times. Parents express how happy and settled their children are at the nursery. Parents say that they would recommend the nursery to others.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build further on the planning of children's learning to include children's next steps more frequently in the curriculum to help children make even better progress
• further support children's ability to concentrate and become fully engaged in their learning without unnecessary distractions.