Whitesmore Wise Owls Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at nursery happily and are eager to learn. Staff are kind, caring and attentive. They provide emotional support for younger children when they need it, which helps them to feel safe and secure. Children access an array of exciting activities. Younger children learn early mark-making skills as they explore different textures, such as paint, cornflour and slime. They use different tools, including vegetables, to make marks. Two- and three-year-old children learn how to follow instructions and move their whole bodies as they excitedly join in with a music and movement session. They are immersed by the live music staff play using a guitar. At the end of the activity, children show an understanding of staff's expectations as they wait patiently for their turn to hold the 'pick' to play music on the guitar themselves.

Children are exposed to a language-rich environment. Staff continuously communicate with children and regularly sing to them. Staff model descriptive language to help younger children understand new words. Staff skilfully adapt their teaching to meet the individual needs of children. For example, when older children are playing with toy animals, staff ask some children to identify an animal beginning with a particular sound. For less able children, staff encourage them to identify animals by the sounds they make. This helps all children participate at their own level and pace, and remain motivated to learn.

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

• Managers have designed an ambitious curriculum which provides a broad and varied learning programme for children. Staff share their vision and effectively implement the curriculum to help children gain knowledge and skills in preparation for the next stage in their learning.
• Staff know children well. They understand what children need to learn next and adapt their meaningful activities to help them achieve this. In addition to this, staff provide 'compact teaching time' to provide focused one-to-one learning for children. As a result, children are supported to make good progress in their development.
• Staff provide children with a wide range of activities to help them make progress across the seven areas of learning and development. Children enjoy imaginative play as they mix oats to make porridge, which they feed to dolls. They explore a wide range of technology, including touchscreen tables and remote-control toys. However, at times, staff intervene too quickly to help children achieve the desired outcome. This has an impact on the opportunities for children to enhance their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills for themselves.
• Children behave well and are consistently motivated to learn. They show high levels of concentration and work cooperatively with their peers. For example, older children work together to role play as dentists. They use a giant model of teeth and pretend to clean them and give an injection. They take turns and share resources. Staff help children to resolve conflicts promptly.
• Partnerships with parents are exceptional. Parents speak highly of the nursery and praise the amount of continuous communication they receive about their children's learning and development. Parents become increasingly engaged in their children's learning as they complete suggested activities at home, such as finding different leaves in the environment or 'windy' items in their home. Parents praise the support that staff provide for children's individual needs.
• Key persons form caring relationships with children. They provide cuddles and comfort for babies who are new to the nursery, which helps them settle. Staff work effectively with parents to follow children's individual routines, which helps to meet their needs.
• There is a dedicated special educational needs coordinator who is passionate and committed to her role. She carries out regular observations of children and is responsive to those who may not be achieving expected levels of development. She implements successful partnership working with parents and other professionals, which helps children make progress in their learning and development.
• Managers provide regular supervision opportunities for staff. They recognise the pressures staff face and are supportive of them. Staff access regular training opportunities. However, training is not yet sharply focused enough on raising the quality of teaching consistently to the highest possible level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on the opportunities that children have to promote their critical-thinking and problem-solving skills
• strengthen the training and professional development opportunities that staff receive to raise the quality of teaching consistently to the highest level.