Yaqadoodle Childcare Academy

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a home-from-home environment, where children are happy, feel safe and can express themselves through creativity. As children arrive, they cannot contain their excitement to play with their friends. They leave their parents with ease and embrace staff with cuddles. Children are confident and self-assured. They welcome visitors and are keen to show the inspector wooden construction models that they have created. Children beam with delight as they learn how to put their 'magical' wellington boots on. They take pride in their learning environment and help to tidy toys away.

Staff teach children nursery rhymes and sing songs with them. Children relish these opportunities and are excited to learn actions and dances to the different songs. Babies look at their reflections in low-level mirrors and play with musical instruments. They show good upper body strength as they pull themselves up onto play equipment. Staff are skilled in supporting younger children to gain good balance and coordination in readiness for walking. Older children enjoy exploring water and help each other to search for 'treasure' in the sand. They practise writing their names in flour and excitedly talk about a visit to the local park. Children show excellent large-muscle skills as they ride scooters, play ring games and take part in races. Children develop positive attitudes towards their learning and are well prepared for their move on to school.

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

• The highly experienced and dedicated manager has a clear and aspirational vision for the nursery. She wants the very best for children, families and staff. She aspires for the nursery to be outstanding and has effective systems in place for self-evaluation.
• In the main, children are provided with a curriculum that builds on what they already know and can do. Leaders identify that not all staff have a secure enough understanding of what they intend children to learn. This means that some activities are not pitched at the right level and do not support children's next steps in learning. For example, some younger children are expected to understand the names and properties of two-dimensional shapes. This results in some children losing interest in their learning.
• Parental partnerships are a golden thread of this good quality nursery. Leaders leave no stone unturned to ensure parents feel part of the 'Yaqadoodle family'. They are invited in for coffee mornings and staff provide them with information about their children's time at the nursery. Parents state that the nursery is 'excellent' and staff go 'above and beyond' for their children. Links with the local authority and external childcare professional are robust.
• Care practices are good. Staff spend time getting to know children and their families during the settling-in period. In the main, children behave well. However, some staff are not consistent in providing children with clear messages about their behaviour. This results in some children not always understanding what is expected of them.
• Staff instil a love of reading to children. They take children to the local library and talk to them about different books. Children excitedly choose books, talk about the illustrations and handle them with care. They inform staff that they like to share books with their friends and family. Children are confident communicators, who use a wide range of vocabulary.
• Leaders give staff well-being high priority. A successful professional development programme is in place and staff regularly attend appraisal meetings. That said, leaders identify that the supervision arrangements for all staff are not wholly successful in providing them with incisive feedback about their interactions with children. This means that staff are sometimes unaware of how to raise their practice to a higher level.
• The support in place for children who speak English as an additional language and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is excellent. Leaders ensure barriers to learning are removed and links with external professionals are effective. Individual learning plans are in place, and these are monitored with rigour to ensure all children make good progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the implementation of the curriculum, to ensure activities are pitched at the correct level for all children and support their next steps in learning
• provide children with clear and consistent messages about their behaviour
• refine supervision arrangements for staff and provide them with more detailed feedback about their interactions with children, to raise their practice to a higher level.