Children 1st @ Shepshed

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

All children enjoy their time at the nursery and demonstrate that they feel safe and secure as they confidently move around the rooms.

The environment is stimulating and provides an array of toys and resources for children to choose from. Staff are responsive to the children's needs and follow their interests effectively. Management and staff have high expectations of the children's learning.

They track children's development effectively and use the information they gather to cater for children's individual needs. Children are well behaved throughout the nursery. Older children are polite and are beginning to learn to ...respect their friends' views and opinions.

Younger children are taking turns and learning to share. Children play cooperatively together and have a positive attitude to learning. This is evident as they pretend to be firefighters and build a fire engine.

They share the fire hoses and eagerly put out the fire. Staff have a strong focus on helping children with their speaking skills. For example, they make good eye contact when speaking to babies and younger children.

They introduce new words to increase older children's vocabulary. For instance, staff describe the worm that is found in the garden as a 'wrinkly wiggly worm'.

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

Managers understand the importance of improving the nursery.

They have recently introduced a children's council. This provides older children with the opportunity to voice their opinions and make suggestions to improve the nursery. One of those suggestions has led managers to develop a new curiosity room, where children can explore the properties of a wide range of natural materials and resources.

Managers have safe recruitment procedures, which helps to ensure staff are suitable for their roles. They carry out induction procedures and recognise the need for training to update staff's knowledge. The manager carries out checks on the staff's performance to help improve their practice.

However, the systems for evaluating staff practice do not have a strong enough emphasis on supporting them to raise the quality of teaching to an outstanding level.Staff know the children well and fully understand how children learn. They build on what children already know to help them succeed in their future learning.

They provide exciting activities that help children become fully engaged in their play. For instance, children roll balls down tubes, pour water and play hide and seek. However, occasionally, staff interrupt children's play.

This means that children may not be fully able to pursue their independent learning activities.Children enjoy making marks from an early age. Older children talk about the drawings they make with excitement.

Younger children enjoy books and talk about the characters in the pictures. However, staff do not consistently make good use of opportunities to help older children develop their early reading skills.For example, learning about letter sounds.

Babies are cared for in a relaxing and calm environment. Staff find out about babies' routines before they start. This means staff know about their sleeping and eating patterns and they can plan accordingly around these times.

All children enjoy playing outside and develop their physical skills well. Children learn to keep themselves healthy. Managers provide healthy snacks and meals and encourage children to follow hygiene procedures.

Staff take safety as a priority. They let children take risks while well supervised, such as going up and down the climbing wall. Staff check the rooms before the children start to ensure they are free from hazards.

They remind children to be careful when walking up and down steps as they go into the garden.Managers have established strong arrangements to involve parents and other professionals in children's learning. Staff use daily discussions and online systems to exchange information about children's achievements and care.

Staff encourage parents to share information about what their children have been doing at home, to support continuity of learning and care.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Management and staff have a good knowledge of child protection issues and a secure understanding of their role in helping to keep children safe from harm.

They regularly update their knowledge and undertake training to find out about the wider issues of safeguarding. Managers know what to do if they have a concern about a child in their care or an allegation is made against a member of staff.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: strengthen the existing arrangements for monitoring and supervising staff to raise the quality of teaching to the highest level build on the opportunities to help older children develop their early reading skills nincrease opportunities to help develop children's independent play and exploration.