Tiny Toez @ East Staffs

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders have made significant improvements since their last inspection. They conduct thorough risk assessments of the nursery environment to eliminate potential hazards and risks for children, ensuring that the premises are clean and suitable for childcare purposes. Children play happily alongside the friendly staff, chatting to them about their play. Babies hold out their arms to staff for reassuring cuddles. This demonstrates that children feel safe and secure in the nursery. Children happily engage in a range of fun and exciting activities that are planned for them to enjoy. They run around excitedly in an enabling outdoor area. Children develop important physical skills as staff guide them to navigate their way along balance beams. Staff model how to throw balls for young children as they attempt to throw them through basketball hoops. Children cheer excitedly as they are successful and staff praise their efforts, building their confidence and self-esteem.

Staff teach children to develop an understanding of healthy lifestyles. Children eat nutritious meals and snacks and learn how the food they eat is good for them. For example, they learn how eating the courgettes and peppers in their lunchtime casserole helps them to grow big and strong. Leaders and staff implement safety protocols within the nursery to ensure children's dietary needs are met. Children behave well in this nursery. They learn and respectfully follow the rules and routines established across the nursery. Staff teach children how to care for each other and the environment. Children's growing independence is promoted well. For example, young children learn to put on their coats and shoes and older children self-serve their meals at lunchtime and pour drinks from jugs.

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

• Leaders have developed a curriculum that reflects children's interests and what it is children at different stages of their development need to learn. However, staff working with older children sometimes focus too much on letters and sounds and do not build on what children already know and can do to fully support their next steps in learning.
• Leaders have worked hard to develop the ways in which they support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) within the nursery. Observation and assessment of children's learning are used to help identify and plan appropriate support for children. Staff receive ongoing training and coaching to further develop this area of their practice. Leaders work in partnership with external agencies and other professionals to seek specialist advice that will further support children with SEND in the nursery.
• Children's communication and language skills are promoted. Staff engage in purposeful conversations with young children as they play alongside them, introducing and modelling new vocabulary. For example, children learn the names of unfamiliar vegetables, such as cabbage and peppers, as they prepare meals for staff in their outdoor café. Babies enjoy singing familiar songs and sharing lift-the-flap books with staff. They smile and babble as staff animatedly name the animals they reveal. However, staff working with older children do not consistently support children's ongoing communication as well as they could.
• Children enjoy a range of activities and learning opportunities that are fun and engaging. For example, young children develop important fine motor skills as they explore using different materials, such as manipulating fir cones and making patterns in play dough. Older children enjoy drawing pictures and other mark-making activities that support them to develop a good pencil grip in preparation for pre-writing skills. Children develop personal safety skills when they participate in 'Beep, Beep' day activities, where they learn how to cross the road safely.
• Leaders monitor the quality of teaching and learning to identify areas of their practice to further develop and to promote staff's professional development. Staff have regular supervisions and feel that their well-being is considered. They undertake ongoing training to support them in their roles. For example, they receive training in the use of a language tool that uses signs and symbols to support children's early communication skills.
• Parents speak favourably about the nursery and the staff who care for their children. They report how their children enjoy their time at the nursery and feel safe and secure. They appreciate the information they receive about their children's daily activities and the progress they are making. Parents comment that they receive helpful information from staff about how they can continue to support their children's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to build on what children already know and can do to fully support their next steps in learning
• embed how staff consistently support communication and language for older children to help them make even better progress in this area.