Lodge Farm Nursery School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Babies and young children enjoy attending this friendly and welcoming nursery, located on a working farm. Staff provide a broad curriculum, which incorporates the main areas of learning effectively. Children show they are happy and build secure attachments with the caring staff team.

Children have lots of opportunities to be independent and explore their natural surroundings, including going on daily woodland walks. The nursery has three alpacas and free-range chickens. Children often collect the chicken eggs and talk proudly about their discoveries.

Staff use these opportunities well to promote children's sense of res...ponsibility and develop their nurturing skills. Children have a good understanding of the wider world and show confidence in exploring the various natural habitats. Leaders are ambitious and have high expectations for all children to improve their learning potential.

For example, following recent training, the staff team looked at creating 'friendly' spaces to promote and encourage good communication. As a result, all rooms introduced cosy, enclosed areas with soft furnishing for children to sit and enjoy talking with their peers, or to share a book. Staff have seen a significant improvement in children's speaking and listening skills and general engagement, since introducing these spaces.

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

Staff know how to create a calm atmosphere to support babies and young children to settle in and feel at ease. They ensure children understand how their behaviour may have an impact on others. For example, they are consistent in reminding children about using their walking feet, listening ears, quiet voices and kinds hands.

All children build secure relationships with adults and play well alongside their peers.Staff observe children regularly during their play and know how to seize opportunities throughout the day to extend children's interests. For example, when staff notice that some children show a keen interest in tractors during their play and when exploring picture books, they take them to see the farm tractors.

Babies and toddlers have good opportunities to experience sensory play, such as exploring everyday objects and natural materials, including lavender-scented play dough.Key persons monitor children's individual progress and, overall, they make good use of their assessment information to identify children's capabilities. However, following recent changes in planning, staff are yet to achieve a more consistent approach in offering a mix of child-led and adult-led activities, and in embedding fully children's identified next steps within their plans.

Babies and young enjoy looking at picture books and staff use these opportunities well to help children understand about changes, such as using the potty or moving on to school. Older children learn to use technology confidently for a purpose. For example, they show good hand-to-eye coordination as they use their fingers to touch the interactive whiteboard and make marks.

Overall, staff use language well to introduce new words and increase children's growing vocabulary. However, at times, staff do not give children sufficient time to respond to questions or to solve problems for themselves, before providing the answer.Staff work closely with parents to find out about babies' personal care routines, such as sleep patterns and dietary needs.

Parents receive regular feedback about their children's progress, such as via an online assessment tool, where they get to view their children's work. Parents comment positively on how staff are always looking for new innovations to improve the quality of the provision.The nursery's special educational needs coordinator has established secure links with local authority advisers and other professionals, such as speech therapists.

She supports staff in providing targeted help for children who have language and speech delay, and those in receipt of funding.Leaders ensure that all staff receive ongoing support and training to develop their practice and improve their skills. The nursery manager meets regularly with room supervisors to discuss any concerns.

Additionally, the room supervisors meet termly with individual staff members to discuss key children and training needs, and explore ways to reduce staff workload. Staff comment that they enjoy their role, feel valued and welcome the support they receive from managers.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

The lead practitioner for safeguarding has a secure understanding of her role. She ensures staff implement the nursery's safeguarding policy and procedures fully. She provides ongoing safeguarding training so that staff remain up to date with wider safeguarding issues.

All staff demonstrate a good understanding of their role to keep children safe from harm. They are familiar with the main signs of abuse and the procedures for making a referral, should they have a concern about a child in their care.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nenhance the current system for planning so it reflects fully a mix of adult-led and child-initiated activities, and to embed clearly any identified next steps in children's learning nallow older children sufficient time to process information and respond to challenging questions, to help develop their problem-solving and thinking skills.