Brook Babes - Streamside Cottage LTD

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children benefit from highly skilled staff who have a shared determination to continuously improve teaching and learning.

They know each child extremely well. Staff make excellent use of rigorous ongoing assessments of children's achievements to plan learning activities that help them to rapidly achieve their next steps. Children are inspired by an environment that fully promotes their growing independence.

Children are confident and show extremely well-developed physical and problem-solving skills. They show exemplary behaviour and high levels of self-regulation. Staff have high expectations and support childre...n to develop an understanding of themselves and their feelings.

This is strongly embedded into practice. Staff expertly promote children's communication and language skills. Children have ample opportunities to play and learn outside.

For example, they delight in acting out their favourite story, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. Staff offer highly effective support to children and model new language expertly as children stomp through the garden. Children thrive in the setting and are exceptionally ambitious in their learning.

They are animated, enthusiastic and take delight in the rich, varied and imaginative activities on offer. Children are highly motivated and confident communicators. They develop very good social skills, make friendships with their peers and are considerate of the needs of others.

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

Staff establish exceptionally close, respectful relationships with children. They get to know children's individual personalities and interests very well. In turn, children demonstrate excellent levels of self-motivation and a positive sense of well-being.

They demonstrate very cooperative behaviour towards one another. For example, during water play, children pick up and pass objects to others when they are out of their reach. They wait patiently for the resource they want and say 'thank you' when they receive it.

All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make exceptional gains in their learning and development. Staff have an outstanding knowledge of the curriculum that they implement. They are incredibly enthusiastic and provide children with extremely stimulating learning experiences.

For example, pre-school children estimate the number of marbles in a pot. As they count confidently beyond 30, the children relate some of the numbers to their own lives, such as the age of their parents.The manager and staff attend incredibly beneficial training to support them to build on their already impressive skills and knowledge.

They also ensure that training is very relevant to the needs of the children they care for and they monitor the impact it has. For example, staff completed storytelling training. They report that their storytelling skills now engage children much more effectively and, in turn, children's listening and attention skills are improving rapidly.

All staff evaluate their practice well. For example, they observe each other teaching children and set challenging targets to enhance their performance even further. The manager closely monitors the consistency of care and teaching that staff provide for children.

For instance, she holds regular evaluation meetings to discuss the children's achievements. Staff use their deep knowledge of children's stages of development to create activity plans. This ensures that all children achieve the best possible learning outcomes.

Across the nursery, staff skilfully and consistently model language associated with feelings. For example, on rare occasions when children disagree with each other, staff swiftly intervene and use phrases such as 'I can see you are feeling cross'. This helps children to understand how they are feeling and equips them with the language to express this for themselves.

An exceptional management team leads this nursery with passion and determination. Managers place the highest value on their staff and prioritise their welfare. In turn, the staff are very close and all strive together to provide the very best for children.

Parents feel very well informed about their children's learning and development. They also report on the benefits of the support they receive. They feel confident to help their children learn at home due to the varied ways that staff support them.

For example, in the baby room, parents borrow 'busy bags' to take home. Each bag focuses on a different skill and contains resources and guidance.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Children's safety and well-being are given the highest priority. All staff have an outstanding knowledge and understanding of the setting's safeguarding and child protection policies. They know how to help keep children safe and protect their welfare.

Staff know who to contact to seek advice or raise and follow up any concerns. They have in-depth knowledge of the signs and symptoms of harm and speak with confidence about taking any necessary action. Leaders have developed a culture of reporting concerns swiftly to ensure children consistently stay safe.