Yellow Brick Rd Nursery Harwich and Ramsey

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their nursery experience. They enter confidently, where they are greeted by caring staff who take the time to ask them how they are feeling. Staff engage in conversation with the children and parents about what they have been doing at home. They are knowledgeable about children's home lives. For example, they are eager to find out how children have enjoyed their holiday the previous week. Staff help children to seek out their friends and encourage them to participate in small-group play. Staff give children clear directions during their day so that they understand what is coming next. The children who are chosen as 'helpers of the day' ring a hand bell to get the children's and staff's attention. They deliver clear messages, such as 'five minutes left to play until tidy-up time'. As a result, children are well prepared for the next stage of the day. They excitedly clear the resources away in preparation for whatever is coming next.

Staff plan an effective curriculum that enables children to select some of their own play and learning, as well as participating in planned, adult-led activities. Children enjoy a relaxing yoga session, which helps them to feel calm. In the garden, they tackle physical challenges such as walking from tyres to logs positioned around the sandpit. Staff are on hand to support and offer the right amount of assistance to allow children to take appropriate risks.

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

• The nursery benefits from a strong management team consisting of the two directors and a manager. The directors oversee much of the administrative tasks, people responsibilities and initial contacts with parents. This leaves the manager and staff to focus on the day-to-day running of the setting. The management team places good emphasis on supporting the staff. For example, the team gives staff well-being days, which they can use to take some 'me-time'. Social events enable staff to build closer relationships with each other. As a result, the staff team has remained stable and strong for a number of years.
• Parents speak very highly of the managers, staff and overall nursery experience. They comment on how the staff know their children and families really well. Some speak about the support they receive to help them to seek interventions for their children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Some parents comment on the stable staff team and how they feel that their children are completely safe and well cared for.
• The provider and the key person for each child visit the children and their families in their own home as part of the settling-in arrangements. This provides them with a good opportunity to get to know the family, the children's siblings and pets. It provides opportunities for the key person to gain a good insight into the children's interests. This information is used effectively by those staff to help children to settle into the nursery experience. When key persons see that children have a specific interest at home, they ensure that resources that reflect this are presented for their first days. Staff and managers see the benefit of this effective planning as children settle quickly and feel safe and secure.
• Staff enhance children's learning by taking them out of the nursery to explore the wider community and by asking visitors to come in. For example, a visitor brought her chickens to meet the children.
• Managers make effective use of additional funding to enhance individual children's nursery experiences. For example, some funding is spent on purchasing equipment that they know will extend the children's learning through their interests, such as a new exciting water tray for the garden. Other funding is spent on offering individual children more nursery provision. Parents are encouraged to play an active role in helping to make decisions about how best to spend the additional funding.
• Staff ensure that children play in the well-presented garden at various times during the day. However, this means that children who learn better outdoors have their best learning experiences determined by set times. As a result, the learning experiences for these children are limited.
• The staff team works well together. A number of staff are further developing their knowledge, for example, by working towards higher qualifications. Strategies are in place to support staff. However, these are not yet successful enough to ensure that teaching is delivered to a consistently high level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop further strategies for building a consistently strong team that is able to deliver teaching to the highest level
• review and enhance the arrangements for children to choose when they play and learn outdoors.