Twiglets Private Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy the time that they spend at the nursery. They have close bonds with the staff, who are attentive to children's needs and are nurturing. All children make good progress in their learning. They gain a broad range of useful knowledge and skills that prepare them well for school. This includes children who speak English as an additional language and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff have high expectations of children. Children behave well.

Children develop a love of books and listen attentively when staff read to them. They confidently share their responses to familiar stories and songs. They recall details about these and sequence events. For example, children know that the verses in a song represent the sequence of events for a caterpillar, such as when it emerges from the egg and later spins itself a cocoon.

Staff consistently help children to gain confidence in their abilities. Children develop good levels of independence and a can-do attitude. They eagerly help to prepare their healthy snacks. They peel and segment fruit. They show pride in their achievements and announce, 'I did it by myself.' Older children confidently take themselves to the toilet and know that they must wash their hands after using the bathroom.

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

• Following the last inspection, leaders have successfully made improvements to raise the quality of practice. They have developed an effective approach to self-evaluation and identified further improvements they wish to make. For example, leaders plan to enhance children's outdoor learning experiences further.
• Leaders successfully monitor the quality of teaching and learning. They provide staff with effective professional development opportunities. This has helped staff to improve their teaching practice. Staff feel well supported. Recent training has helped them to improve how they use their observations of children's achievements to plan well for children's learning.
• Teaching is good. Staff have a detailed knowledge of each child and use this to develop challenging individual learning programmes successfully. They plan a wide range of interesting learning experiences that successfully help children to broaden their knowledge and vocabulary. For example, children learn about the habitats and food preferences of dinosaurs. They use subject-specific words, including 'herbivore' and 'carnivore'. Children develop their understanding of the human body, including skeleton parts such as the skull.
• Staff skilfully support children with SEND. They make timely referrals to outside agencies to ensure that children receive the support they need. Staff work closely with other professionals to develop targeted learning plans to help children to progress well from their starting points. Leaders ensure that children who the provider receives additional funding for benefit well from this.
• Children are well-motivated to play and learn. They eagerly explore what happens when they mix flour and baby oil. Children decide to add more oil to make a 'runnier' mixture and add more flour to make it more solid. However, staff unnecessarily interrupt children's play to complete other activities, such as having snack and to lead an adult-led activity. At times, this interferes with children's learning and interests.
• Leaders have a good understanding of the learning priorities for the children who attend the nursery. Overall, they have developed a good curriculum that identifies the sequence of learning intentions that help children to build on their knowledge over time. However, the mathematical curriculum does not precisely sequence the knowledge and skills that children need. At times, staff move children's learning on to more advanced concepts before they are ready.
• Staff use effective strategies to engage and support parents in their children's learning. They value the contributions that parents make and help them to support children's continued learning at home. For example, staff support parents to help children with toilet training and to encourage their independence.
• Staff provide children with a good range of opportunities to support their physical development. Children concentrate while they use tweezers to pick up small objects. They enthusiastically use large brushes and water to make marks on surfaces outdoors. This supports their shoulder movements and hand strength well, and helps them to gain the physical skills they need for writing.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• refine the mathematical curriculum and support staff to match learning experiences more precisely to children's current knowledge and understanding
• review daily routines to increase opportunities for children to make choices in their play and learning.