Treehouse Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the nursery confidently and staff greet them warmly. Children show they feel safe and secure. Staff know the children well and invite them to join in with their favourite activities. Babies roll balls and explore how they move and happily sit and listen to interactive songs using scarves. They know their special adult is there for comfort when needed. Toddlers play alongside one another with staff and build tall towers, then enjoy knocking them down together. They independently select books, hold them correctly and turn the pages to look at the pictures, which supports their early literacy skills. Pre-school children enjoy the challenges staff give them to solve their own problems. When they cannot reach the toy cars on the gate post, staff support them to think of how they may achieve reaching them. Children think carefully, then get some large blocks to stand on. They are very proud of themselves when they reach the cars and choose the ones they want to play with. Children show a positive attitude towards their learning.

The manager has a clear vision for the curriculum and offers a broad range of experiences for the children. She knows the skills and knowledge that children need to gain to move successfully through the nursery and on to school. Staff know the children well, including their interests and abilities. They identify what children need to learn next and monitor their progress carefully. All children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children who learn English as an additional language make good progress from their starting points.

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

• Children have plenty of space to develop their physical skills. Toddlers and pre-school children fill wheelbarrows with foam bricks and push them around, negotiating the space well. They climb up ladders and slide down the slide with confidence. Children use steppingstones to practise their balancing skills and staff support them when needed. Indoors, babies pull themselves up to standing and cruise around the furniture as they start to learn to walk.
• Partnerships with parents are very positive. Parents report they are happy with the progress their children are making. They state that communication with staff is good and that they know their children's key person and what their children are learning. Parents say they like the lending library and taking home books to read and games to play with their children.
• Children's behaviour is very good. Older children form positive relationships with one another and play together cooperatively, sharing and taking turns. Staff support younger children sensitively on how to respect their friends, helping them to think about the consequences of their actions on others. Staff offer children lots of praise and this helps boost their self-esteem.
• The manager has identified and addressed some areas for improvement in the nursery. She has worked closely with staff to improve how well they support children's communication and language. Staff report that they feel very supported by the manager, both professionally and personally. The manager has introduced 'grandparent' days so that they can spend time with their grandchildren to see what they are learning in the nursery. Parents report these have been very well received and enjoyed.
• Staff promote children's communication and language skills effectively. They reinforce and repeat simple words with the babies and use songs to develop their understanding. Staff animatedly read stories to toddlers and encourage them to join in, to support their developing language skills. Staff ask older children effective questions to encourage their thinking. They introduce new words, such as 'knead' when making dough and explain what it means; this broadens children's vocabulary.
• Overall, staff support children's early mathematical skills well. They offer babies various sized balls to explore and to see if they fit in different sized tubes. Toddlers learn simple mathematical language such as 'big' and 'small' when reading stories and describe the 'tall' tower they have made. Older children recognise numerals and confidently count. However, some adult-focused mathematical activities do not always captivate the older children's interests and they choose to go and play somewhere else.
• Overall, the key-person system is effective in helping young children settle into the nursery. Staff offer flexible settling-in sessions to suit individual children's needs. Staff work closely with parents to find ways to replicate home routines and ensure they know these and children's favourite toys and activities. However, on occasion, they do not consider children's attendance and staff's working patterns, to enhance the settling-in process further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff understand how to implement the curriculum for mathematics more effectively, based on children's interests and self-chosen play
• review the organisation of the key-person system so that it helps all children settle quickly and develop secure attachments with their special adult, so they are ready to play and learn.