Worcester Early Years Centre

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Good settling-in procedures help children to be ready for the move from home to the setting. Children arrive happy and eager to begin their play. They form good relationships with the caring team of staff, who know them well. Babies are settled and content, and staff are tuned in to their individual needs. For example, they recognise when babies are beginning to get tired or hungry. Babies receive lots of reassurance and cuddles from the nurturing staff. This helps to support their emotional well-being.

Children are eager to play and motivated to learn because staff provide them with a well-organised and interesting learning environment. Staff help young children to develop strength in their hands in readiness for early writing. They encourage them to pick up small objects with large tweezers. Children develop a love of books and stories. Staff use expressive voices as they read to them during the day. Staff have extremely high expectations for children's behaviour. Children know exactly what is expected of them because staff gently remind them of the rules of the setting from an early age. Children display good manners and are caring and kind to their friends. They listen attentively to staff and follow their instructions. For example, children are eager to please and quickly respond to staff's request to get ready for small-group activities.

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

• Staff plan a range of interesting activities around all areas of learning, with some learning experiences inspired by children's interests. This helps children to make good progress in their learning and development. However, managers and staff do not always have a clear enough understanding of what they want children to learn from planned activities and why this is important to their educational journey.
• Staff make regular assessments of children's achievements. They use this information to plan activities for their future learning. Although staff identify what children need to learn next, the planned next steps are sometimes too broad. They do not focus specifically on individual children's development to support them to make the best possible progress.
• The experienced members of the management team are dedicated to their roles. They have strong relationships with staff, who comment on the high levels of support they receive for their well-being. Managers meet regularly with staff to discuss best practice and identify training needs. Staff are keen to continue with their professional development and access training to improve their knowledge and skills.
• Partnerships with parents are very good. Staff share information with them in a range of ways. For example, they add photos and reports to children's online learning records and speak to parents at drop-off and collection times about children's care needs and achievements. Parents are highly complimentary about the service the centre provides. They comment on the 'wonderful' facilities and the well-retained staff team.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) make very good progress. The knowledgeable special educational needs coordinators are passionate about their roles. They swiftly identify and act on any emerging concerns, and they work extremely well with external agencies and parents. They ensure that targeted support plans are in place to help children with SEND to make the best possible progress.
• Children enjoy lots of opportunities to play outside in the fresh air. They develop good physical skills as they ride on wheeled toys and climb on apparatus. Staff provide children with experiences to learn where food comes from. For example, they grow, harvest and cook their own produce. Staff take children to visit the cows on the farm and learn where milk comes from.
• Staff provide children with a good range of experiences to support their mathematical knowledge and skills. The youngest children learn about space and measure as they fill and empty different-sized containers with resources. Older children display high levels of concentration as they identify numbers, shapes and colours during small-group activities. Some pre-school children demonstrate an understanding of how to add and subtract numbers between one to five.
• Hygiene and care practices are good. Pre-school children independently manage their own self-care. Staff remind children to wash their hands at regular intervals throughout the day. Staff sensitively attend to babies' personal care. Young children sleep peacefully in comfortable surroundings. Staff regularly check on them to ensure that they are safe and well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on staffs knowledge of what they want children to learn from planned play activities, to help them make the best possible progress in their educational journey
• review children's planned next steps in learning to make sure that they are precise and focused on children's individual learning needs.