Greencoat Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children are happy and settled at the nursery. They demonstrate that they feel safe because they have a good relationship with staff who know them well.

Children settle quickly when they arrive as they access toys and resources within the spacious indoor play areas. Children are busy, engaged and have fun playing games with their friends as they learn about people who help us. They role play being doctors and nurses as they bandage dolls and staff, and pretend they are giving injections or listening for a heartbeat.

Children make marks for a purpose as they write prescriptions and appointments. They squirt water on mod...el houses as they pretend to put out fires and use their creativity as they design police badges.Staff have high expectations for behaviour and children behave well as they share and take turns during play.

They are given lots of praise and awards for their achievements. This supports children's emotional well-being. All children make good progress in their communication and language skills, including children who speak English as an additional language.

Children develop a good understanding of the wider world. They explore the contributions of Black inventors as part of Black History Month and create poppies for Remembrance Day from red play dough. Children enjoy playing with real food, such as kidney beans, chickpeas and chapatti, in role play as they learn about food from around the world.

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

Teaching is good as staff plan activities around children's interests and what they want children to learn. Play areas are open plan so that children can move around and freely choose where they play. However, staff do not always consider the best time to deliver different learning experiences to ensure that children are not interrupted from activities when they are focused or concentrating.

Staff support all children's literacy skills from an early age. Children enjoy looking at books with staff and they join in familiar stories. Staff make the most of all opportunities to introduce new vocabulary.

For example, they introduce the words 'stethoscope', 'prescriptions' and 'injections' as children pretend they are caring for sick people. Children learn letters and the sounds they make as they sing along to rhyming words while watching a programme.Staff know what their key children need to learn next and help children to build on what they know and can do.

They focus on developing children's social skills and vocabulary so they are able to have meaningful conversations, for example, about what a pharmacy sells. However, occasionally, when staff ask questions, they move on too quickly with further questions before children can consider what they want to say in response.Children enjoy outdoor play where they explore soil in the mud kitchen and pretend they are cooking.

They fill containers with sand and talk about going to the beach. In addition, children ride wheeled toys or sit in the wooden structure to look at books.Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are well supported in the nursery.

Staff regularly review children's progress and discuss this with parents. They seek and follow advice from professionals involved in the children's care to help close any gaps in their learning and to give them the best start in life.Partnerships with parents are good.

Parents speak highly of the staff and the good feedback they get daily about their children. Staff provide parents with a good amount of information and activities to support their children's learning at home, including taking books home to read.Leaders and managers are ambitious and improve the quality of the curriculum and provision further.

All staff have good opportunities for ongoing professional development. This helps them to enhance their knowledge and understanding of childcare.There is strong provision across the nursery to promote staff well-being, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leaders make themselves available to staff at any time and there is access to professional counselling and advice. In addition, staff are encouraged to share any personal concerns or worries as they complete sticky notes about how they are feeling.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Staff have a good understanding of safeguarding. They have a good awareness of the indicators of abuse and know how to report concerns. Staff regularly attend training.

In addition, management regularly question staff about aspects of safeguarding to test their knowledge and ensure their understanding of the procedures is up to date. Staff know how to recognise signs that a child could be drawn into extreme views. The staff and management team understand the role that they and the community can play in early intervention.

They provide a clothes bank to support families in need and refer families to other agencies for support. Effective risk assessments are in place to ensure that the premises are safe, and staff ensure that children are supervised well.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: build on staff's questioning techniques to enable children to have more time to think and answer for themselves reflect on the best times to deliver different learning experiences to ensure that children are not interrupted from activities when they are focused and concentrating.

Also at this postcode