Willow Green Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff build good relationships with children and are kind and caring towards them. Staff give children cuddles and reassurance as they need it. This helps children to feel happy and safe in the setting. Staff mostly have high expectations of children. They encourage young children to persevere at putting hoops over a stick. This helps children to become confident in their own abilities. Staff support children in managing their behaviour. They work alongside children, helping them to resolve conflicts and supporting them to work together. This helps children to understand what is expected of them.

Staff promote positive attitudes to learning and create opportunities to develop children's curiosity. Older children take pleasure in chopping up real vegetables and mixing them in a pan. Younger children play with toy animals, exploring the noises they make in different materials, such as when they crunch them in cereals. This helps children to explore and investigate. Staff help children to learn about healthy lifestyles. After playing outdoors, children put their hands on their chests to feel their heart beating fast and staff talk to them about what is happening. This helps children to understand about the effect of exercise on the body.

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

• Staff support children to develop their communication and language skills, and sequence the curriculum effectively. Babies enjoy singing nursery rhymes, toddlers engage in stories and older children have conversations about things that interest them. This helps children to use language for a range of different purposes.
• Staff have created an effective curriculum for developing children's physical skills. Children squeeze tubes of tomato puree when making pizzas and show control when spreading it out. This helps children to develop strength in their hands and control over their small movements.
• Leaders monitor the quality of practice in the nursery to support improvements in the service offered to children and their families. However, this does not always identify inconsistencies in how well the curriculum is implemented. This means that some staff do not always fully extend children's learning.
• Staff support the development of children's personal, social and emotional skills. They play alongside children, encouraging them to give the dolls a cuddle and teaching them how to care for them. This helps children show care and concern.
• Staff have built good relationships with parents. They share information with parents about what children learn while at the setting. This helps parents to continue their child's learning at home and creates consistency in the approach to meeting children's care and education needs.
• Staff put in place effective support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The setting works closely with parents and professionals. This helps to ensure that the individual needs of children with SEND are met.
• Staff help children to learn about some similarities and differences. Staff talk to children about the colour of their eyes and help them learn about some festivals. However, staff do not always fully embrace children's cultural backgrounds and heritages. This does not fully enhance children's awareness of differences and expand their understanding of the world around them.
• Staff support children to behave well. Staff offer children praise and encouragement, recognising the efforts that children make. Children are self-assured and confident in the setting.
• Staff use numerous opportunities to teach children mathematics. They count with older children to see how many spades of sand it takes to fill a bucket and use mathematical language when encouraging children to cut tomatoes in half. This supports children to learn about number and measure.
• Staff help children to learn about different buildings. Staff talk with children about the different types of houses they live in and look at pictures of buildings. This helps children to understand the features of the community.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• refine systems for monitoring staff practice to enable leaders to ensure the curriculum is consistently and effectively implemented across the nursery
• explore more ways to further embrace children's home cultures and heritages to strengthen their sense of belonging.