YMCA Carters Green

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are greeted warmly when they first arrive and participate in a welcome song to say good morning to their friends. They feel safe and secure and have a sense of belonging within their group. Young babies wave and clap to show enjoyment and pre-school children are confident to talk about their feelings. Older babies use signs to communicate their needs effectively, ensuring staff understand when they have finished at an activity. Children develop secure early communication skills.

As children progress through the nursery, they develop excellent skills to help them succeed in the next stage of their learning. Children are consistently provided with high-quality teaching experiences. They thrive in their learning because they are constantly introduced to new instructions and resources to enhance their developing skills and ideas. As a result, children are eager, confident and active learners. Children's behaviour is exceptional.

Children benefit from lots of opportunities to engage in imaginative play. Babies play with wooden spoons and real food. They have mirrors to look at themselves as they play and watch their friends who play alongside them. Pre-school children use the home corner as a dinosaur cafe. They prepare food and pretend to feed it to the dinosaurs. Children spread butter onto a baguette, cut up cucumber using an age-appropriate knife and shred salad.

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

• Leaders embed an ethos across the nursery based on Christian values. Staff teach Christian values through inspiration, trust, hope and compassion. Children learn about developing a healthy body and mind. Leaders promote this through a healthy vegetarian menu, physical exercise and opportunities for rest.
• Children have excellent attendance and therefore thrive in their education. Leaders are keen to monitor absences using a well-designed tracking tool which highlights obvious patterns and records reasons for absences.
• Staff consider children's interests and starting points when planning activities. They observe children in their play to ensure they plan a beneficial learning environment. Staff ensure that babies who show repetitive patterns in their play have plenty of opportunities to explore a variety of resources which all work in the same way. This develops an understanding for how resources operate.
• Older children are school ready because they acquire the skills to be independent thinkers and learners. Staff use simple language and model expectations to ensure children and babies develop independence. Staff do exceptionally well to ensure the level of independence they give children is right for the individuals age and development. For example, toddlers are able to peel their own fruit at snack time and pour their own drinks.
• All children develop good language skills because staff constantly talk to them and use signing to strengthen communication. Children regularly hear lots of new words and are confident to repeat them. Mathematical language is extremely strong throughout the whole nursery. Older babies say 'three' after hearing staff count 'one, two', as they recognise that three comes next. Children use a ruler to measure worms which they find outside. Children have a desire to compare sizes using descriptive language, such as 'big' and 'long'.
• Leaders have developed a strong curriculum which is inclusive to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who are learning to speak English as an additional language. Focused plans are in place to ensure all children make good progress. Staff encourage children to express themselves in other ways to overcome barriers in learning, for example through song and creative exploration. Children benefit from multilingual staff, consistent routines and effective key-worker systems to help develop their confidence.
• Leaders ensure staff receive training to continuously develop their skills. They see upskilling staff as priority to ensure excellence. Leaders coach less experienced staff to ensure they succeed. Staff benefit from a good induction to the nursery. Leaders have secure monitoring procedures in place to ensure the quality of education is good. They use peer observations and supervision meetings to evaluate the impact of systems in place. Leaders evaluated the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it had on parents' engagement. Parents are not always provided with enough information about the progress their child makes or how they can continue to support their child's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide parents with information about their child's learning and how they can continue to support learning at home.