First Learners’ Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision requires improvement Children and their families are warmly greeted at this friendly setting. Children enter happily to play with their friends. They quickly settle to choose toys to play with together.

This helps to develop their social skills well. Staff plan activities based on children's interests. For example, children enjoy playing with their favourite trucks and cars in the sand tray and exploring outside.

However, staff do not always fully recognise when they could support children further in their interactions with them, to extend their learning. Nonetheless, children have fun playing together outside inventing games and building tow...ers with blocks, delighting in knocking them down. They develop friendships successfully.

Staff have worked hard to make changes to the environment to support different areas of learning. For example, children enjoy exploring the tepee tent and 'curiosity cube', inspired by their interest in books they have read. They enjoy snuggling up to listen to stories with staff in the cosy book area.

However, although staff know their individual key children, they do not share information with each other well enough about what children need to learn next. This means that staff do not always know how to support all children during activities to develop their language and understanding most effectively.

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

Managers are passionate and dedicated, having made positive progress since their previous inspection.

Nonetheless, there are occasions when daily routines and the way staff are deployed means that children do not always benefit from consistent quality interactions to further support their play and learning. For instance, staff do not fully recognise when children would benefit from their assistance. This impacts on children's engagement with, and attitude to, learning.

Children foster positive relationships with each other and staff, who offer comfort and cuddles. Children cheerily welcome their friends when they arrive and invite them to play. Staff encourage them to play together in the role play kitchen and to dress dolls together.

This successfully enhances their personal and social skills.Staff speak confidently about their assigned key children, sharing knowledge of their preferences and likes. However, not all staff know enough about other children's learning needs, which hinders their ability to enhance and extend all children's learning experiences.

Staff effectively support children who are learning English as an additional language. For example, they learn key words in children's own home languages to help them settle in. Staff display family photographs to assist children in understanding where they come from.

This fosters a positive awareness of others and the world around them.Staff plan activities based on what children's are interested in. Children eagerly join in painting bear masks, following their interest in a story.

They talk with staff about how many eyes they will put on. However, staff's approach to enhancing children's language skills is yet to be consistent. As a result, children do not always receive the support they need to help them make the best possible progress in their language and understanding.

Managers recognise that the setting has gone through challenges and changes. They are reflective and evaluative. They work well with the local authority to identify areas of improvement.

They have exciting plans for the future to develop the provision further. Staff work closely with other settings and professionals to support children and families with special educational needs and/or disabilities.Relationships with parents are positive.

Parents appreciate the verbal feedback they receive at the end of the day and how friendly the staff are. However, staff do not always provide enough information about what children are learning to help parents support them at home and prepare them for school. Despite this, children are happy to attend and parents report that their children have made progress in their speech and confidence.

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: review and improve routines and staff deployment to better support children's engagement in activities and staff's interactions with children nimprove information sharing between staff about children, to help them plan activities that extend children's thinking and learning strengthen consistency of staff's practice to support them to develop children's language and understanding more effectively provide a more consistent approach to helping parents know what their children are learning, so that they can help prepare them for school and support learning at home.