Tiny Heroes Elmers End

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled in this welcoming nursery. They show secure relationships with each other and staff. Children actively share and take turns during play, building friendships and positive attitudes to learning. For example, during outside play, older children ask each other if they can have a turn to sit on the roundabout and willingly swap places. They discuss whose turn it is to push and they stop when someone wants to get off. This shows they understand how to use the equipment safely and show consideration for others.

Children benefit from a broad and balanced curriculum, including regular outings in the local community. Inclusion is promoted exceptionally well. As a result, children show high levels of acceptance and support towards each other, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). This creates a productive learning environment for all children. Staff use their knowledge of what children can already do and plan activities that meet their individual learning needs and interests. As a result, all children make good progress from their starting points. Staff support children well in gaining personal independence, including skills such as feeding themselves, toileting and putting on their coats and shoes. Older children make choices during play and show good early literacy skills. This helps prepare them for the next stage in their education.

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

• Leaders and managers implement effective staff supervision procedures and regular team meetings. This enables staff to share ideas and promotes their individual continuous personal development through training and support. As a result, staff work cooperatively together, ensuring they are well deployed to support children's needs.
• Staff plan activities using exciting topic themes as a focus, relating to storybooks, artists, festivals and children's interests. For example, when learning about the solar system, children enjoy dressing up as astronauts and aliens. Guided by staff, they pretend to go to the moon in the large cardboard rocket they have made and painted. They sing songs about the moon and confidently talk about the planets. This helps children consolidate their learning effectively. Children enjoy the adult-led creative activities, although opportunities to develop their free creative expression in their artwork are less well promoted.
• Children show a good understanding of expectations of their behaviour. For example, during outings, older children walk sensibly to the park and follow staff's instructions well. Staff seize every moment to talk to children about interesting things they see along the way and everyday events. This sparks meaningful discussions as children talk about their pets, homes and families. Consequently, children's understanding of the world and their language skills are extended further.
• Parents appreciate the opportunities to attend regular events, such as parents' evenings and stay-and-play sessions. Parents say they receive lots of information about their children's progress and that their children are happy, have gained confidence, and their communication and language skills have improved.
• Children enjoy a balanced diet of freshly prepared meals. They talk about the foods they like to eat and how older children enjoy being the 'helper of the day'. Children mainly enjoy relaxed and sociable mealtimes. However, mealtimes in the baby room are sometimes less well organised, resulting in more staff movement and less settled and engaging experiences for children.
• Staff actively promote children's good health. They have completed relevant training and reviewed their sickness and medication policy. Staff gather all required information from parents about children's medication and promptly share information about any accidents. These embedded systems of partnership working promote children's welfare.
• Toddlers concentrate well while learning about shapes. Staff talk about the shapes and they count the sides of each shape together to help children identify them. Children carefully add the glue and match the shapes to their stencil. Their language skills are extended further as they make good attempts to name the shapes with staff and enjoy staff's praise for their efforts and achievements.
• Babies enjoy music time and clap and jig while staff sing and play the guitar. They actively copy when staff say and use signs, for example when asking for 'more' pizza and fruits at teatime. This successfully helps their communication skills.
• Staff show high regard for working in partnership with parents, especially regarding the early identification of any SEND. As a result, parents gain access to appropriate services for their children, and staff work with other agencies to ensure children's individual needs are met effectively.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider ways to provide more opportunities for children to develop their free creative expression, for example, during creative activities and drawing
• review mealtimes for the youngest children to provide them with a more settled and engaging experience.