Highfield Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children's happiness, well-being and safety are at the heart of this nursery. Children arrive with enthusiasm, ready to start their day.

Staff provide a fun, engaging and caring environment for all children. An effective key-person system means that children behave well overall, and they build trusting and affectionate relationships with staff. Children show they feel safe and secure as they happily head off to explore.

Children are motivated to play and learn. The management team has created an effective curriculum for children. Staff use their understanding of children to provide a varied and stimulating learning env...ironment.

Children benefit from a range of activities and experiences tailored to their next steps and individual interests. For example, staff encourage children to blow bubbles. Children excitably try to pop the bubbles and chase them around the garden together.

Children make good progress from their starting points.Staff support children's communication and language development well. Children who are bilingual or who speak English as an additional language receive tailored support.

Some staff members are bilingual and speak with children in their home language to reassure and settle them when they first start. Children access a wide range of books at the nursery. Staff read to the children each day.

Children join in with familiar words and phrases and make predictions about what might happen next in the story. This helps to promote children's early language skills.

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

Staff operate a nursery and holiday club on site.

Children attending the holiday club enjoy a range of experiences. For example, children eagerly gather to carry out a science experiment to make a volcano erupt. They use vinegar and baking soda and shriek with delight as they watch the lava spill over the top of the volcano.

Staff extend learning and speak to the children about chemical reactions. All children have access to a well-equipped outdoor area to support their physical development.Over the last year, there have been lots of changes to staffing within the nursery.

The management team has plans in place and is committed to supporting staff through training, coaching and mentoring. However, training does not always link to the areas of development needed for the staff team. For example, although some staff work with children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), they have not had any coaching or training to develop their skills in this area.

Staff support children to build their independence. Children confidently select toys and resources to play with. Staff encourage children to do things for themselves.

For instance, older children confidently collect their lunch boxes, sit at the table and open them independently. Children are supported to wash and dry their own hands and self-serve at mealtimes. This helps children develop the skills needed for later life.

Partnership with parents is good. The management team prioritises building strong relationships with parents and values their contribution to their children's learning. Parents speak very highly of the nursery.

They say that staff are friendly and welcoming and go over and above to meet children's individual learning needs. Parents receive detailed information about their child's care and learning through daily diaries and conversations each day. Staff provide parents with information to help their children learn at home.

Staff support children who are in receipt of additional funding extremely well. They provide funded children with learning opportunities that they may not usually experience. For example, children have recently enjoyed a visit from a 'zoo lab'.

They enjoyed looking and holding different reptiles, such as snakes and frogs. This has helped to increase children's understanding of the world.Overall, children behave well.

Older children use their manners when they ask for something and show kindness towards other children. Staff recognise and praise children's efforts and achievements. However, on occasion, when younger children display unwanted behaviour, staff do not always intervene or explain why this is not acceptable.

This does not fully support children's understanding of the expectations of behaviour.There is a high number of children with SEND at this nursery. Managers ensure that provision is in place to support these children, overall.

Staff promote an inclusive environment for children with SEND. They work with other professionals in a timely way and devise individualised plans that focus on children's specific needs. Parents praise the level of support that children with SEND receive.

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: provide support and training opportunities for staff to ensure that they have the skills and knowledge to fully support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities nensure staff have the skills and confidence to consistently embed expectations for children's behaviour.