Victory House Children's Centre

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and show excitement as they greet staff and their friends in the morning. Staff organise the rooms well and provide a wide range of varied activities for children to engage with. They plan around children's interests and next steps in development, as well as using a topic-based approach. There are clear assessment procedures in place when children first start. Staff use ongoing assessments to support their planning and to set personalised targets for children.

Children feel valued and emotionally secure at nursery. This is because staff offer them high praise and encouragement as they play and engage in activities. Staff remind children of the importance of showing respect for each other and sharing resources with their friends. The nursery has bright and engaging displays to celebrate children's successes and achievements.

Staff want children to feel part of their community. Children enjoy trips out to local markets, enjoy weekly trips to the library and visits to their community dentist. This helps children to understand the importance of community cohesion and develops their knowledge and understanding of the world. Staff provide dedicated reading areas in each of the rooms. This allows for children to self-select books to look at and to share stories with staff. There is also a lending library to encourage children to take books home to share with their parents and carers. This supports children to develop a love for reading.

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

• Children behave well. They respond to staff's instructions for tidying up and lining up for the toilet. Staff remind children of their expectations to sit down at circle times and mealtimes, and for using their manners when asking for things. Children take turns in sharing fruit at snack time and in pouring their own drinks. Staff praise them as they listen to their friends and develop their social skills.
• Children enjoy circle time and group-time activities. They enjoy choosing songs to sing to and music to dance to. For example, younger children enjoy clapping and jumping and joining in with familiar action songs. Older children enjoy dancing and moving to the music of action songs. Staff join in and encourage and support children to be imaginative and expressive.
• Staff generally support children's language well. For example, they ask questions for children to respond to and by repeating the words and sounds children make back to them. However, staff do not consistently encourage and develop all children's language as they play. For example, at times, they do not label objects, model short sentences and extend children's vocabularies.
• Children enjoy the many opportunities they have to be physically active. Babies have adequate floor space to practise crawling and walking. Younger children enjoy trips to the local park, where they can run, climb through tunnels and slide down slides. Older children enjoy playing chasing games, such as hide and seek, and throwing and catching and kicking balls.
• Staff plan many opportunities across the nursery for children to develop their small-muscle skills. For example, younger children enjoy manipulating play dough with rolling pins and cutters, filling and emptying pots in the sand tray and using pipettes in the water tray. Pre-school children thread cotton reels onto string to make necklaces, fill measuring jugs and use pens to make marks.
• Parents are happy with the warmth that staff show their children. They say they are fully involved in their children's learning and receive ideas to help at home. Parents are particularly pleased with the confidence that their children have gained since starting nursery.
• The leadership team understands the importance of professional development and supports staff to gain early years recognised qualifications. Staff liaise with professionals, such as speech and language therapists and physiotherapists, to support children with specific needs. The close working relationships with their local authority early years advisory team means they have a clear vision for moving forward and building on existing practice. However, the leadership team has not offered staff further training on planning and delivering interventions for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to ensure that all children have the opportunities to achieve the best possible outcomes.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to extend all children's communication and language further during their play
• strengthen support for staff to plan and deliver interventions, in particular for children with SEND, to ensure that all children achieve the best possible outcomes.