Woodleys Farm Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children learn a breadth of knowledge and skills through the 'real-life' activities staff plan for them. They enjoy pretending to make different food for staff in the outdoor mud kitchen, such as curry and cookies. Children confidently discuss with staff what they are doing and answer questions, such as how many scoops of mud they need and how they will cook their food thoroughly. Staff praise children for being keen to try things for themselves, such as using their muscles to pull open the microwave door. With staff's support, children develop close friendships. They share resources and learn how to negotiate and wait their turn when they want the same toy. Children are happy to invite their friends and staff to join in with their chosen play. They search to find more spoons and bowls as staff suggest, 'Let's cook together.'

Children enjoy playing alongside staff and develop close relationships with their key person. They know staff's expectations and learn the routines of the day from a young age. Children under two years old navigate the stairs carefully, listening to staff and sitting on each individual step. They copy staff, repeating 'bump, bump' as they travel. Children take their shoes off without prompting when they enter the nursery and hang their coats up on their individual pegs.

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

• Staff observe children and identify what they already know and can do. They use this information to plan for the skills and knowledge children need to learn next. Staff adapt the environment and create activities based on children's interests and to give them learning experiences they may not get elsewhere.
• Staff provide adult-led activities to teach children about the world around them and different families and cultures. Children share photos of their families and answer staff's questions about their pets and siblings. They discuss what is similar and different to other families. Occasionally, some staff focus too much on what they have planned for children to learn from an activity and narrow the learning opportunities children have. This means children do not make the progress they are capable of during some planned activities.
• Overall, staff support children's communication through their interactions. They encourage children to join in with familiar songs, such as 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm'. Children laugh as they suggest that there would be a dinosaur who goes 'stomp'. Staff encourage children to stamp their feet with them. However, the quality of staff practice is not fully consistent as some less-experienced staff are not yet able to recognise when to ask children thought-provoking questions or teach new vocabulary.
• The manager provides staff with standard coaching and support. However, this is not fully tailored to their specific skills and knowledge. Therefore, although it is developing staff's practice, it is not yet fully effective at supporting staff to develop the skills and knowledge they need to improve the consistency of practice and interactions for some staff.
• Staff encourage children to develop their resilience and learn important life skills. They ask, 'How can you get it now?' when a resource becomes stuck, and they encourage children to try different ways to retrieve it. Children say 'ta-da' and show they are proud of their achievements when they succeed.
• Staff focus on children learning important life skills. They help children to collect and use a knife and fork to eat their dinner and encourage them to use good table manners. Staff teach children how to clear their own plates and put them in the dishwasher after eating.
• Senior leaders all have different individual responsibilities in the nursery. The leader responsible for supporting children with special educational needs and/or disabilities helps staff effectively to adapt the curriculum for children to fully access learning opportunities.
• Senior leaders provide the manager with professional development opportunities. However, this support is not yet embedded enough to be fully effective and help the manager develop her managerial skills. Therefore, at times, the manager struggles to identify when times, areas or staff in the setting might need further support to improve.
• Parents and carers explain that staff's communication has gotten better since a recent change in management. They explain that they enjoy receiving weekly emails with information about their child's learning and development, pictures of activities their child has taken part in and ideas to help their child progress at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop staff's ability to recognise and make the most of learning opportunities during activities
• strengthen how leaders identify and provide the necessary support for individual staff to improve the consistency of interactions, skills and knowledge
• embed the professional development that the manager is provided with to improve their leadership skills and ability.