Castle Kindergarten

Highlights from Latest Inspection

Summary of key findings for parents

This provision is good • Teaching is consistently good. Staff have a thorough knowledge of children's interests and use these effectively to prepare the environment with exciting experiences.

All children make good progress in relation to their starting points in learning and are enthusiastic to participate in activities. • Babies thrive in the nurturing and caring environment with their key person. They have established individual routines and secure bonds with staff.

This has a positive impact on the babies' emotional well-being and their behaviour is very positive. • Staff work hard to promote children's personal, social and emotional development. Children have opport...unities to share information with their friends about the times spent with their family.

They celebrate personal achievements through the 'buddy bear' activity. Children show good levels of self-confidence and high levels of self-esteem. • Staff have developed excellent links with other professionals, including teachers and special educational needs support workers.

This helps them to meet children's individual needs and promote inclusion. • The manager and leadership team provide support to staff to help them understand their roles to work with children. Staff are well qualified and access a range of training to enhance their skills and meet children's learning needs.

• Staff gather feedback from children to help them reflect on their practice and make continual improvements. Children have left stickers on the 'wow tree' stating how their key person 'listens to me and plays with me'. • Staff do not provide older children with choices about the foods they would like to have on their plate at lunchtime.

This means that some children are unwilling to try different foods and do not have the opportunity to make healthy choices. • The manager has not fully embedded new systems to record assessments of children's progress. This means some children's recorded information is unclear and inconsistent.