Willows Montessori Nursery (Crawcrook)

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy their time in nursery. For example, they enjoy listening to stories. Babies enjoy snuggling up with staff and looking at cloth and board books together. Parents and carers comment that their children are happy, settled and thriving in nursery. They report that staff know their children well. Parents comment that staff take the time to get to know children's skills and interests. Children learn how to keep themselves safe. Throughout the nursery, staff focus on helping children to develop their small-muscle skills. Children learn how to use a variety of tools safely, such as scissors and graters, with very good control.

The curriculum is ambitious. Staff support children's communication well. They place a high priority on singing and stories. This helps to expand children's vocabulary. Staff working with younger children adapt their communication effectively. Children know the rules and routines of the nursery. From a young age, children know that they need to put things away when they have finished with them. They know that they need to sit and wait at the table for snack after they have washed their hands. When staff sing a song about lining up, children form a line ready to go inside.

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

• Managers and staff evaluate their provision effectively. They have recently altered the layout and organisation of the nursery to make a separate room for children aged two to three years. Although this room is new and the resources are evolving, staff have noticed an improvement in children's engagement and concentration.
• Staff work well with other settings that are involved in children's learning. For example, they have contacted schools that children will be attending and invited teachers to visit them in nursery. This provides opportunities for staff to share valuable information about children's learning and development with teachers. When children attend other settings, staff gather information prior to children starting with them. This helps them to understand children's individual needs before they start.
• Staff working with babies are very knowledgeable and attentive to children's individual needs. They respond when children are tired or hungry. Staff work exceptionally well with parents to help children to settle and to understand their routines from home.
• Staff do not consistently take account of the sequential stages of child development when planning for the different areas of learning. For example, they do not consider in enough detail how children develop their counting skills as they move from one room to the next.
• The curriculum for independence is particularly well sequenced. Staff help children to develop the skills that they need for everyday life. For example, two-year-old children learn to pour liquids and materials from one jug to another. They then transfer these skills to snack time, when they pour their milk from a milk jug into a cup.
• Children develop very good relationships with each other. They develop an awareness of the needs of others. For example, younger children understand that other children would like to use the resources that they are using too. They hand their friends the resources so that they can have a try too.
• Managers support all children well. They work well with a range of professionals to help to plan for children's individual needs even more effectively. They act on advice from professionals and incorporate targets into their planning. Staff use funding effectively to help children to make the progress they are capable of.
• Managers monitor the quality of education. However, this is not yet sufficiently precise to identify minor inconsistencies in practice. For example, staff do not consistently find effective strategies to enable quieter children to express their thoughts and ideas during group times.
• Staff have a good relationship with parents. They use a range of methods of communication. Face-to-face discussions and electronic communication help staff to share information about what children are doing and what they need to learn next. Staff find out a wealth of information about children's learning at home and this helps to inform staff's assessments to help them to understand children even more fully.
• Managers support staff to develop their knowledge and skills. Staff attend a range of training, which helps to update their knowledge further. Managers identify training that supports staff's teaching even further. Recently, staff have attended training to help children to regulate their emotions. Following this, they have shared strategies to help parents at home and refer to this throughout the day in nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• plan more effectively for the sequential stages of child development across the whole curriculum
• identify and address any minor weaknesses in teaching, such as supporting staff to enable quieter children to express their thoughts and ideas during group times.