Bluebells Nursery School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff implement a thorough settling-in period, which helps children to settle with ease into the nursery school. Staff obtain a wealth of information from parents so that they can meet children's individual needs.

Children thrive in this nursery school, where they feel safe, happy and relaxed. The managers have effective knowledge and understanding of what they want children to learn and achieve. They create a stimulating curriculum both indoors and outdoors that incorporates children's interests and next steps.

The activities keep children engaged and motivated to learn. For instance, children had tremendous fun makin...g salt dough, which they used to create aliens from out of space. The younger children squealed with delight as they showed off their alien with many googly eyes.

Children demonstrate good behaviour and follow the nursery school rules and routines well. Staff have a consistent approach to managing behaviour. This helps children to know what is expected of them and helps them to feel secure and listened to.

For example, they listen well to staff's instructions at tidy-up time. Children from a young age are taught the importance of sharing and turn-taking. Staff support children's literacy effectively.

They provide children with opportunities to make marks as they create shopping lists in the role-play shop. Older children are developing confidence in beginning to link letters to sounds, demonstrating their school readiness.

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

Staff regularly observe children's progress.

They use information gained to identify meaningful next steps to ensure that children are being continually challenged. This supports children to make good progress in relation to their starting points. Staff implement a secure online system that enables parents to login to access this information.

Parents are encouraged to share children's learning from home, which helps to provide consistency between home and the nursery school.Staff provide engaging opportunities for children to use their imagination and creative skills. For instance, children go on a star hunt to locate fallen stars that have lost their sparkle.

They use glue and glitter to cover them with the hope that they will rise back into the sky once night has fallen. Children comfortably learn how to use scissors as they cut out arms and antennae from pipe cleaners for their aliens.Children learn about how things grow as they plant and tend to tomatoes and strawberries.

Once these are ripe, children help to harvest them in preparation for healthy mid-morning snacks. They also visit local parks to collect leaves and conkers for leaf rubbings and collages.Children have daily opportunities to develop a good range of physical skills.

For example, they develop good hand-to-eye coordination as they play tennis with soft balls. Children enjoy steering a range of wheeled toys, such as scuttle bugs and wheelbarrows, carefully around the garden. Their fine motor skills are enhanced while in the mud kitchen as they unhook utensils to help them to create a range of tasty dishes.

Staff are proactive in promoting children's language as they ask them effective questions to extend children's thinking and speech. Children use words such as 'slimy' and 'sticky' to describe the texture of the salt dough mixture. Children who speak German as an additional language have good opportunities to use their home language in the setting.

For example, they count in German and engage in meaningful discussions with staff. However, children who speak other languages do not have the same opportunities to hear and use their language in the nursery school to fully extend their learning.Parents say that the nursery school has a real family feel, with a nurturing environment and a sense of community.

They speak highly of the staff supporting children's emotional well-being well.The managers have a positive attitude towards staff's ongoing professional development. They implement informal weekly meetings where they review children's progress, plan for the following week and discuss the effectiveness of the curriculum.

Managers continually review each other and staff's performance. This supports them to review and strengthen any staff weaknesses and highlight meaningful training. Staff have developed their knowledge of early literacy to further strength children's early reading skills in preparation for school.

Although staff have high expectations of children, they do not consistently encourage children to complete tasks by themselves, for example putting on their coats and preparing their own snacks.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The management team ensures that the safer recruitment process is robust and that all staff complete Disclosure and Barring Service checks.

This helps to ensure that staff are suitable to care for children. All staff complete regular safeguarding training, including on the 'Prevent' duty guidance and female genital mutilation, which is regularly updated. Staff have a secure understanding of what to do if they are concerned about the welfare of a child.

They are aware of the signs and symptoms of abuse and neglect. Children's well-being is ensured as staff use risk assessments effectively to keep children safe in the nursery school and while on outings.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: strengthen all children's opportunities to hear, see and use their home language further in the nursery promote children's independence further by encouraging and supporting them to do more things for themselves.