Timbers Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive extremely eager to learn and play. They greet staff with enthusiasm. Staff, families and children have developed excellent relationships. As a result, children feel safe, secure and valued in this nurturing, calm environment. Staff create a respectful culture. They consistently model positive interactions and prioritise children's emotional well-being. Staff guide children's behaviour thoughtfully and promote their independence with clear, supportive boundaries. Children's behaviour is exemplary. They show respect, take turns and develop problem-solving skills with skilful support from staff.

Staff implement an ambitious, tailored curriculum that meets each child's needs. They create exceptionally inviting environments with stimulating activities and resources. They observe children's interests to plan purposeful learning activities. This supports staff in identifying next steps for each child's development. Staff know all children incredibly well, enabling them to support learning very successfully. Children make rapid progress.

Staff have high-quality interactions with children. They provide ongoing opportunities for children to develop and use their language skills. For example, staff use effective questioning, age-appropriate vocabulary and visual prompts with children. They help children test out their ideas together, such as when building with construction bricks. This sparks curiosity and children's exceptional engagement in learning. Staff expertly build children's skills and knowledge over time. For instance, children practise their physical skills by firstly banging a golf tee into a watermelon. They then build on these skills to take part confidently in supervised woodwork activities with wood and nails.

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

• The highly experienced leadership team has an ambitious vision. All staff model this through the play-based curriculum and their interactions with others. Leaders have formed excellent relationships with staff and children. From this, they have created very clear expectations for behaviour, attitudes and learning. Leaders provide staff with regular training, supervision sessions and meetings. They have created an extremely open culture. Leaders ensure that staff's continuous professional development and well-being are prioritised. For instance, leaders run an in-house podcast with important information that is shared between staff.
• Leaders and staff work closely with other agencies. This helps children and families get any additional support and funding they need. Leaders use additional funding to improve children's learning experiences, for example to provide new resources in the garden. They use children's interests to buy new resources that will capture their interest and imagination. As a result, children have high levels of engagement.
• Partnership with parents is exceptional. Staff provide opportunities for parents to extend children's learning at home. For example, there is a library of books and puzzles for families to borrow. This helps children connect what they learn in the nursery to their daily life. Parents' views are respected, and staff regularly ask parents for updates about children's life experiences. This results in an up-to-date understanding of every child's development. Staff share useful information with parents. For instance, staff create information posters about healthy eating. This supports parents' awareness of the impact of sugar on their children's teeth.
• Staff delivery of the engaging curriculum is inspiring. All children make excellent progress. For example, children peel and cut their own fruit. This boosts their small physical skills fast. Staff have a highly effective, united approach. They closely evaluate children's development. They seek the views of parents to help influence their curriculum. For example, parents have requested support with teeth cleaning. Staff now incorporate this as part of children's daily learning.
• Staff hold small-group sessions to support children's language development. They use these sessions to monitor any children who may need additional support. These sessions are extremely effective. As a result, children speak with confidence and their vocabulary is progressing fast.
• There is excellent support in place for children who speak English as an additional language. For example, parents write words from their home language phonetically for staff to use with children. Children have an incredibly strong sense of self and belonging. They celebrate their similarities and differences, engaging in high-quality interactions with others. For example, staff read stories to children and discuss people's differences and similarities to embrace and celebrate these. Every child has access to all areas of the setting throughout the day. Children feel respected, and that their voice is heard.
• Children are well prepared for the next stage of learning. For example, staff ask children what they think they should do if they encounter a problem. As a result, children think critically and problem-solve independently.