West Wight Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are valued and respected for their unique personalities. In turn, children recognise that they are individuals with their own thoughts and ideas. For instance, as older children share ideas about treasure as they listen to favourite stories. They share alternate ideas about what treasure might be and despite these being different, children value the views of their friends. Children's behaviour is exemplary throughout the nursery. Even the youngest of children know what is expected of them, as staff share clear and age-appropriate boundaries. Children are eager to have a go and relish the challenges when they encounter difficulties. They develop excellent concentration and perseverance skills. Toddlers build and reconnect large blocks until they balance successfully. Children develop extremely high levels of confidence and social skills. Younger children approach visitors and share toys and point out their friends in pictures displayed on the wall.

Children thrive in the nursery and are enabled to achieve at the very highest levels. Children flourish in all areas of their development and develop the skills they need for life long learning. The nursery is brilliantly resourced and tailored for the natural curiosity children have, to support them in learning about the world around them. Children are highly inquisitive and have a thirst for knowledge, which is consistently nurtured by staff who have high expectations for everyone. For all children, including those with special educational needs/and or disabilities and those in receipt of additional funding, progress is exceptional. For some children who start slightly behind their peers, they are helped to catch up very quickly. This means that all children are supported to make the progress they are capable of.

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

• The manager is an exceptional leader. The leadership team and staff put children and their families at the heart of everything they do. They are highly ambitious and passionate in the time and dedication they give to ensuring all children have the best start in life. Partnerships with other professionals and with parents are inspirational. These strong links ensure seamless support is put in place to help all children to have the skills they need for their future learning, including their eventual move to school.
• The manager's supervision of her staff contributes to their exceptional understanding of the nursery curriculum. She supports her staff team extremely well. Staff's ongoing professional development is consistently nurtured. They benefit from regular, individual supervision meetings, where they reflect on their work and identify their own targets for continuous improvement. Staff feel valued and enjoy working at the nursery. The highly tailored training, coaching and support enables staff to continue to develop their excellent teaching skills. Recent training on developing children's communication and language skills has supported staff to successfully create innovative ideas to extend older children's excellent listening and attention skills.
• The curriculum provided by the manager and staff is inspiring. Children benefit from learning which is tailored to their needs, and focuses specifically on what children need to learn or know next. The manager's and staff's shared vision for children's learning is implemented seamlessly throughout the nursery. All staff have an excellent understanding of how children learn. Teaching is exciting and enables children to receive the high-quality learning that contributes to the excellent progress they make from their starting points.
• Children's behaviour is exemplary. Staff help children to understand and value their different wants and needs, and those of their peers. Children share and take turns with favourite toys and happily engage in cooperative play with their friends. For example, as toddlers make 'soup' they take turns in adding different ingredients and share ideas about what to add next.
• Staff focus on children's speech and language skills is exceptional. Staff skilfully adapt their teaching to children's ages, abilities and needs. For instance, staff help babies to point out characters in favourite stories. Toddlers hear new language as staff continually use conversations to introduce new words and explain what these new words mean. Older children develop a love of books and enjoy being read to. As staff retell favourite stories to pre-schoolers, children recite favourite parts of the book. They excitedly recognise some words sound the same as they rhyme worm and squirm. Children have excellent listening and attention skills. When some children start slightly behind in their speaking skills, staff swiftly enable them to quickly catch up with their peers. This helps all children to be confident and articulate communicators.
• Staff are highly attuned to children's individual personalities and offer sensitive encouragement, time and praise for children. This enables those children who are quieter and less confident to shine, in their own unique way. Children develop excellent levels of self-esteem and a positive, can-do attitude in all that they do.