Tree House Friends

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are excited to come to this unique and nurturing setting. The staff warmly welcome them and focus on developing strong attachments so children flourish and feel safe and secure. They are dedicated to ensuring children have the freedom to explore and develop a lifelong love of nature and respect for the world around them.

Children have good independent skills. Staff work hard to embed routines and support children to do things for themselves. Staff make children feel valued and listen to their voices. They are warmly welcomed in the morning circle time and sing 'good morning' to their friends enthusiastically as they sit on logs and have a safety reminder.

Staff are excellent role models for positive behaviour. They have a calm approach and praise and celebrate children's success. They are passionate about getting to know the children really well, and supporting them with their emotional well-being and regulation is a priority. Through carefully planned grounding activities, children are developing good skills to manage their feelings and behaviour as they take deep breaths, walk bare foot on grass or hug trees.

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

• Children use their own ideas and are becoming great problem-solvers. They enjoy the challenge of jumping over rivers and climbing into hammocks. Staff promote a love of reading by creating a cosy pop-up library and being engaging storytellers as they climb trees in the woods.
• Staff support children to lead healthy lifestyles. They work together with parents to ensure that children have hot, nutritious lunches prepared to fuel their bodies for outdoor learning. They find out what children enjoy, identify strengths and ensure children are active.
• Staff know children well. They are nurturing and sensitive to their needs. They track and monitor children's development and plan experiences that support children's next steps. Children delight in learning about the world around them. They are experts at searching for worms and recalling information about birdsong, types of trees and how to light a fire.
• Children are becoming confident communicators and are developing language well. Practitioners are good role models for new vocabulary and help children to say and repeat new words. This ensures all children, including those with English as an additional language, are making good progress. Children use this vocabulary in their play as they talk about things that are edible and may be poisonous.
• Children benefit from quality interactions. Staff are skilled at asking effective questions that enhance the learning and encourage children to think and talk. Children have positive attitudes towards tasks as they work cooperatively to move bark with rakes, spades and wheelbarrows for good periods.
• Children are developing resilience and are motivated to join in. They enthusiastically paddle in the stream and are collecting stones to filter their own water. However, the activities are not always appropriate for all children's ages and stages of development. Therefore, younger children are not fully engaged in activities to make the most of the learning opportunities available.
• Parents speak highly of the forest school. They are so pleased with the unique and exciting experiences that the setting provides and feel their children are flourishing. They are impressed with the staff's nurturing qualities and dedication to providing good quality care, education and advice. Parents recognise the progress their children are making and explain how they are prepared well for learning in the future.
• The leader and manager provide good professional development opportunities for staff to further support the needs of children. They warmly welcome other professionals into the setting to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff's well-being is important, and they work closely as a team and reflect on their setting and practice. The leaders have recently completed a mental health training course to provide them with the skills to support their dedicated team. Staff feel valued and very proud of their roles.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• plan experiences that support younger children's development more effectively so they are even more engaged in the learning and make even better progress.