Westwood Day Nursery

Inclusion: Strong standard

Staff have a clear understanding of each child's individual needs and consistently adapt their practice to ensure every child can access learning successfully. They take swift and effective action to remove barriers. As a result, there is a positive impact on all children's progress and well-being.

Leaders and staff provide highly impactful experiences for children, ensuring they all feel fully valued and included. Staff demonstrate genuine passion and commitment to providing strong standards of care. They foster a strong sense of belonging and emotional security for every child.

Leaders and staff work in close partnership with parents and professionals to identify and respond to children's developmental concerns promptly. Open communication between families and staff is supportive. This ensures parents feel fully involved in decision-making about their children. Robust internal additional support procedures ensure that while waiting for external agency involvement, immediate and targeted support is already in progress. This proactive and responsive approach ensures that children's progress is not hindered.

Staff skilfully adjust provision to meet individual needs and monitor the effectiveness of their strategies, ensuring children continue to thrive. As a result, all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities make sustained progress.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Staff have a clear understanding of the quality of the curriculum across the nursery. They implement a well-designed and ambitious curriculum that meets all areas of children's learning. Staff confidently describe how they deliver learning through motivating and purposeful experiences, ensuring all children engage and make progress. The curriculum promotes curiosity and independence, enabling children to explore and build on their skills through play.

Staff model rich vocabulary to children through reading familiar stories together and encouraging children to express their ideas during activities. Staff help develop children's confidence to learn through a variety of independent experiences to develop their communication and language. For example, as children and staff count scoops of water when filling and emptying containers, children confidently repeat the correct number of scoops. This support children's understanding of mathematical concepts.

Staff understand what they want children to be able to do. However, the consistency of how staff adapt teaching to build on what children already know and can do is not always swift. For example, during some activities, there are times when staff overlook ways to extend learning further. As a result, staff are not consistently embedding high-quality interactions, that support children even further in their learning and development.

Achievement: Expected standard

Staff carefully identify children who face barriers to learning, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff provide targeted support to help them make secure progress. Children are independent learners who take pride in leading their own learning. Staff skilfully extend their communication and language through reading familiar stories and through well-planned activities that encourage conversations. Staff develop children's knowledge and understanding of the seven areas of learning and this supports all children's progression. As a result, children make steady progress from their starting points and develop the appropriate skills to be suitability prepared for their future learning. This includes a smooth transition onto the next stage in their learning journey.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Staff implement a calm approach, where clear expectations of behaviours are commonly understood by all children across the nursery. Staff implement consistent strategies that children follow well. This contributes to children's positive behaviour, as staff model respect, kindness, and cooperation, helping children develop secure emotional understanding and self-regulation.

Children demonstrate positive attitudes to their learning. They engage with enthusiasm, show perseverance in tasks, and take pride in their achievements. Staff skilfully use praise and encouragement to reinforce expectations and celebrate success. As a result, children are confident, motivated, and show high levels of independence and curiosity.

Attendance is a key priority. Leaders closely monitor absence and maintain strong communication with families to ensure children attend regularly and benefit fully from the provision and curriculum.

Inclusive approaches underpin all routines. If and when conflicts do arise, staff respond with sensitivity and consistency, using strategies that promote understanding and respect. This approach ensures every child feels valued, secure, and part of a harmonious learning community.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Strong standard

Leaders and staff create a safe, nurturing, and welcoming environment where every child and family feels they belong. Core values of the nursery are consistently embedded across the nursery, promoting respect, and a strong sense of community. Children confidently settle through strong attachments with their key person and demonstrate high levels of emotional well-being and security.

Staff expertly teach children about healthy lifestyles. They discuss how different foods fuel their bodies for the activities they enjoy, helping children make thoughtful choices about what they eat. Well-structured routines are clearly understood and consistently followed. During mealtime routines, children independently wash their hands before eating and collect their utensils, demonstrating responsibility and awareness of hygiene.

Children relish their time outdoors, exploring with curiosity and confidence. Staff skilfully encourage independence in managing personal care. For example, after mealtimes, children use wet cloths to wipe their faces while looking in the mirror, practising self-care. Children confidently seek help if they are struggling to do this on their own. These embedded routines help children develop life skills and resilience.

Leaders and staff place welfare and well-being at the heart of what they strive to achieve, through their approach. This helps children to build strong foundations for lifelong health, confidence, and independence.

Leadership and governance: Strong standard

Leaders have a strong understanding of what they want children to achieve while attending the nursery. The genuine care for staff and families that leaders create provides an environment where everyone feels supported, valued, and able to thrive. Leaders hold high ambitions for all and take swift, effective action to address any concerns in children's development or learning. This proactive approach ensures continuous improvement across the nursery.

Leaders place equal importance on staff well-being. They encourage manageable workloads and demonstrate a deep understanding of staff's individual needs, offering tailored support to help them succeed. Thoughtful gestures and open communication from leaders help to boost staff's well-being. Staff work collaboratively and feel valued and motivated.

Staff access a range of high-quality internal and external training that enhances their skills and expertise. Leaders and staff respectfully engage with parents and the wider community, ensuring that the views and ideas of families contribute meaningfully to their children's education and care. Parents highly value the level of care and support for their children and how much they have thrived since attending.