Tots Academy

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enthusiastically enter the nursery. They chat to their friends and smile when they receive a warm welcome. Children engage in the activities offered and confidently find equipment and toys that interest them. Staff play alongside them, adding comments and challenges to help build on what they already know and understand. For example, staff ask children what they are cooking in an imaginary kitchen. They encourage children to use new words and phrases, helping to expand their emerging vocabularies.

Children happily join in activities led by staff. They gather around a table to investigate cress seeds before scattering them in pots to grow. Children compare the size of different seeds, using words such as 'tiny'. In another activity, children wait for their turn to listen to and repeat a drum beat. They share equipment and understand that they need to take turns. This helps children begin to respect others and regulate their own behaviour. In the garden, children splash in puddles and ride on wheeled toys. This supports their physical development.

Children are motivated to set their own targets. When they need to, they ask staff to help them reach these targets. This helps to strengthen their confidence and self-esteem. For example, older children have a desire to write simple rhyming words, while younger children want to successfully thread pasta onto laces. Each child thrives on the encouragement and praise staff give them.

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

• The manager has a clear understanding of how children learn and develop. She ensures staff follow a consistent curriculum that helps children build on what they already know and understand. Staff assess children's progress to help them focus on children's individual needs and interests.
• Staff work closely with other professionals, helping to ensure that care and education plans effectively meet the needs of individual children. This contributes to consistent approaches used at home and in the nursery.
• The manager invites visitors to the nursery to help provide memorable ways for children to learn. For example, firefighters bring a fire engine to the nursery for children to look inside and discover the equipment they carry. This helps children find out about the world around them.
• Staff are dedicated to support communication and language development, including for those children who speak English as an additional language. Staff ask parents to make a list of keywords in the language that children use at home to help them feel settled and welcome. Visual timetables help children recognise what will happen next during the daily timetable. All children learn basic sign language, aiding communication with their friends. Staff take time to speak clearly and allow children time to repeat words or work out their own answers. This helps children become confident talkers in the nursery.
• The manager monitors staff's professional development through regular and robust supervision. Through discussion, the manager and staff identify any training needs that support them to further enhance their already good quality teaching. The manager values advice and evaluation from other professionals, helping to promote continual improvements in the quality of care and education.
• The manager and staff have established a variety of ways to share information with parents. For example, they invite parents into the nursery to share ideas of how children's learning can be extended at home. However, the amount of information gathered from, and shared with, individual parents is variable. As a result, not all parents benefit from the wealth of support and guidance offered. In addition, staff do not consistently gather sufficient information from parents to help plan focused teaching right from the start.
• Staff are keen to help and support children. However, through their enthusiasm, staff do not always give children time to solve problems, predict what might happen next or find different ways of doing things for themselves. This reduces opportunities children have to develop their independent thinking skills.
• Children enthusiastically select toys and equipment throughout the day. However, staff do not support children to take responsibility to care for the resources. This impacts on the available space to allow children to move freely and express themselves in an unrestricted way.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review and enhance methods used to consistently gather information from parents, and share ideas with all parents to help ensure children's learning is effectively supported both in nursery and at home
• encourage children to develop their thinking skills during adult-led and self-chosen activities
• support and encourage children to take responsibility to care for toys and equipment in the nursery.