Bridgemont Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children thrive in this nursery, where outdoor learning is a major feature in the curriculum.

Staff understand that the large movements that children develop while dancing, digging and climbing are the building blocks to children having good posture and controlled hand movement when they begin to write. Staff take time to teach children how important it is to have clean hands before eating. Younger children are given the support they need to achieve this, while older children are independent and know how to wash and dry their hands.

Children's learning is not limited by staff looking for a specific outcome from an acti...vity. Instead, children make choices about where they play, and staff move to those areas to help most children to extend and develop their thinking. Staff offer adult-led activities that provoke children's curiosity, and provide opportunities to work on children's learning and development needs in fun and interesting ways.

For example, children are keen to pick the pods from pea plants that they have grown and taste the freshly harvested peas. Staff use this activity skilfully to teach children how to wait for their turn and think about others. Children listen and watch as the staff member shows them how to open a pod, before having a go themselves, using their fingers carefully.

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

The nursery is an interesting and welcoming place for young children to play in. The manager is very knowledgeable about children's development, and she has employed a staff team with an equally strong understanding. For the two years that children attend the nursery, the curriculum is strongly focused on developing children's skills and knowledge in preparation for when they start school.

Right from the start, staff find out what children know and can do, and use the information they have to identify where children need the most support. They seek external professional support in addition to developing their own strategies to suit the individual child.Children learn the nursery routines, become independent and develop confidence.

Staff skilfully use group times to give children responsibilities, such as being the helper. Children take pride in being given this role. They demonstrate that they can count objects accurately and speak clearly as they call out the names for registration.

Staff have clear, simple rules in place for children to follow. The children know these rules and can explain what they mean and why they are needed. For example, they know that if they use kind hands people will not get hurt.

On the whole, staff gently reinforce the rules with children. However, children who need more direct intervention to modify their behaviour do not always get the support they need, resulting in other children's experiences being disrupted.Staff work hard to include all children fully in the daily experiences they offer.

Staff prepare the environment carefully to create a spark of interest for children that they can build on. In the meadow area, most children become deeply engrossed in adult-led activities, such as learning from a staff member how to hold a bat to be more successful at hitting a ball. They also follow their own interests.

For example, they dig soil out of the 'digging hole' and use it in their role play in the mud kitchen. Some of the quieter and newer children's experiences are not so strong. At times, they wander around the area on the edge of play and are not always noticed by staff.

They are not often drawn into an activity or helped to choose something that they want to play with or do.Children are exposed to a wide range of vocabulary and mathematical language throughout the day. Topics are successfully used within the curriculum to introduce children to a diverse range of words.

Small displays from previous topics are left up to provide conversation prompts for children to continue to use the words they have learned and share their knowledge. Staff's use of mathematical language is commonplace. For example, they talk about shape and explain to children that we know a shape is a square because it has four sides of the same size.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: be consistent in interventions to help children to modify how they behave, to reduce disruption to other children's learning help all children to learn how to access the learning opportunities on offer.

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