Cygnet Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children thrive in this homely and welcoming nursery. They are happy and feel safe.

Babies and children show their obvious affection for staff as they seek them out for a reassuring cuddle or chat about their day. Children build good relationships with their key person and other staff. They are familiar with routines and demonstrate self-care skills appropriate to their age.

Staff are attentive to children's individual needs. They reassure young children when they first start at the nursery and sing familiar songs to help them to settle. Managers have a clear vision for the nursery.

They aim to provide a home-...from-home environment, with a strong focus on outside play. This is reflected particularly well with the recent changes made to the outdoor area. Children grow in confidence and independence.

They take good levels of responsibility for managing aspects of their own play and learning. Staff understand their role to work in partnerships with other providers and do this successfully in supporting children's transitions to school. Managers and staff have high expectations and are ambitious for all children to achieve well.

Recent training has helped staff to support those children who speak English as an additional language. This has had a positive impact on children's development and has helped staff to support children and their families further.

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

Children enjoy looking at books and sharing their favourite stories.

Staff read enthusiastically to children and encourage them to predict what might happen next. Books and props to enhance stories are made available for each child to take home and enjoy with their family, cultivating children's early love of reading.Staff plan for children's learning across all areas of development.

They closely observe children's achievements and identify their interests to plan activities that help them progress well in the next steps in their learning. For example, staff built on pre-school children's fascination with construction, creating a dedicated area outside to engage them with physical development and literacy skills.Parents are highly valued as partners and speak very positively about the provision.

They warmly describe the friendliness of the staff team and how happy their children are to attend. Staff exchange information with parents about children's care and education. This contributes to plans that staff make in the nursery to support children's learning and meet their care needs.

Staff share that they feel well supported. They have regular meetings with managers to discuss their work and appreciate access to relevant training to help them develop. They feel their workload is manageable and enjoy working at the nursery.

Staff follow children's interests well. They research activities to support children's interests and to expand their knowledge and range of experiences. Older children delight in their imaginary play, as they independently dress up as pirates, in the transformed home corner.

However, staff do not always respond quickly enough to what younger children are doing to reshape or adapt activities in the environment, to extend their learning further.Managers and staff support vulnerable children who have a difficult start in life particularly well. They help them to develop the skills they need for future success in life.

Staff work well as a team. They have regular meetings to evaluate the effectiveness of their provision and continuously reflect on their practice and the experiences they provide for children. Use of training, coaching and supervision meetings helps managers to develop and improve staff's practice.

However, observations of staff do not help to clearly identify the weaknesses in staff's interactions with children, to further develop their already good teaching skills.Staff ensure that children play outdoors each day. Children are motivated and energetic.

They display good physical control of their bodies. Young children excitedly jump in puddles, negotiate the age-appropriate slide and explore the mud kitchen. Older children climb more challenging equipment and pedal tricycles at speed.

They skilfully negotiate obstacles in their way.Staff are excellent role models. They show children what is expected of them.

Children are confident and are developing positive behaviours to support them in their future learning, such as their move to school.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Managers place a high priority on making sure that children are safe and this is well managed throughout the nursery.

Staff have regular training and their knowledge of child protection is refreshed regularly in staff and supervision meetings. Staff know the signs and symptoms to look for and the procedures to follow if they have any concerns about a child's welfare.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nenhance teaching so that staff quickly adapt the environment and activities to younger children's changing interests, to continually extend their learning focus more precisely on monitoring the quality of teaching and supporting staff to build further on their already strong teaching skills.