Woodland Adventure Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders provide a safe and nurturing environment that promotes children's emotional well-being. They focus on supporting children to be independent and learn fundamental life skills, such as sharing, turn taking and being kind to their friends. Children behave well. Babies follow staff instructions to go feet first down the slide, to help keep themselves and others safe. Older children take turns stacking bricks to create a tower. They know what is expected of them and follow the rules and boundaries well.

The curriculum for communication and language development is a strength at the nursery. Leaders have clear intentions to promote children's good speaking skills and staff implement these effectively. Staff in the baby room adapt their practice well to support those children who speak English as an additional language. They use single key words and repeated refrains, such as 'ready, steady, go', which children then start to copy. Throughout the nursery, staff sing to children a lot. Children join in with words and phrases they remember and eagerly anticipate key parts of songs. This helps children to hear a wide range of vocabulary and become confident communicators.

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

• Leaders have a secure understanding of how to plan an ambitious and well-sequenced curriculum. They follow children's interests and information from their assessments to help inform their planning. Staff get to know children well and understand their unique needs. However, they do not always consider what individual children need to learn next during their play and interactions with them. This does not help children to consistently build on their existing skills.
• The support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) is well embedded. The special educational needs and disability coordinator works with staff to identify gaps in learning and provide targeted intervention. Children benefit from the use of additional screening tools to assess their speech and language development. This helps staff to address concerns swiftly. Children with SEND make ongoing progress from their individual starting points.
• Staff engage in lovely interactions with children. They ask open-ended questions that promote children's thinking skills and encourage them to share their own ideas. Overall, children are motivated to play and engage with staff. However, staff do not always recognise when quieter children are overlooked and need more support to join in. Consequently, some children spend too long not engaged in purposeful learning.
• Children show good levels of independence. Babies use the climbing equipment independently and learn to feed themselves. Older children access the water dispenser and confidently use knives and forks at mealtimes. Children are developing some of the important skills needed for the next stage in their development, particularly the move to school.
• For the most part, the daily routine is well-embedded. Staff deploy themselves well to support children's individual needs. That said, the organisation of the lunchtime routine in pre-school room is not well thought out. Children spend a long time sat for circle time and then immediately sit for lunch. For some children this is too long and as such, they become fractious and unsettled.
• Staff implement the curriculum for mathematics well. Younger children learn to count with one-for-one correspondence. Older children use building bricks to measure who is the tallest and shortest. Staff use various new words, such as 'tiny' and 'huge' to extend children's understanding of 'big' and 'little'. This helps to develop children's mathematical language and broadens their vocabulary.
• Parents are very happy with the quality of care children receive. Leaders provide them with a range of information about children's development and progress. They offer ideas of how learning can be extended at home. Parents value the online application and use this to share what children learn at home. The two-way flow of communication provides continuity in children's care and learning.
• The leadership team work tirelessly to provide staff with a robust coaching and mentoring program. They provide staff with feedback on their individual practice alongside feedback for each room as a whole. Staff benefit from working closely with their sister nursery to observe good practice and develop their skills and knowledge further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus more precisely on what children need to learn next during play and interactions
• support staff to recognise when some children need more support to engage in purposeful play
• review the organisation of lunchtime routines so that children are not sat down for too long.