Montessori Nursery Loughborough Road

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children are happy and engaged at the nursery.

They have good relationships with staff and display high levels of confidence and contentment. Staff work hard to include the interests children have well. This is managed through not only knowing the children well, but through good partnerships with parents.

Staff use information shared by parents about their children to plan activities they know they will enjoy. For example, the role-play area in pre-school has been made into a 'building site'. Children thoroughly enjoy using their imagination to 'paint' and 'saw' as they pretend to decorate the room.

Staff prov...ide children with a safe, well-resourced and fun learning environment. This allows children to be independent and make choices about how and what they want to play with. Staff support children to have good behaviour.

Toddlers are reminded to share and take turns, while older children are praised when using good manners and being kind to others. Staff have high expectations for children's learning and development. The curriculum is broad and covers all areas of learning well.

The manager understands how this is delivered across the setting and monitors this regularly to ensure it meets the individual needs of children. As a result, all children make good progress.

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

Since the previous inspection, actions taken by the manager and staff have ensured that the quality of the provision has improved.

Staff take time to observe and make accurate assessments of what children know and can do. They use this information to plan challenging, fun and interesting activities to support children's next steps in learning. Furthermore, information is gained from parents to help build on and extend what children know and can do.

Overall, children are supported well to develop their communication and language skills. Staff ask questions during children's play to challenge their thinking. Children enjoy singing, listening to and 'reading' stories to staff and each other.

However, some staff do not always model language to support the development of speech for younger children.Supervision, coaching and support are offered to all staff in the setting to enable them to feel valued and develop their practice. Staff observe each other's practice to help identify where changes may be needed to improve children's learning experiences.

However, there is still scope to further develop the training opportunities offered to staff.Children develop good levels of independence, particularly in their self-care skills. For example, toddlers and pre-school children learn how to put on their coats and wash their hands after using the toilet.

Pre-school children enjoy serving themselves at mealtimes. Younger children enjoy using wipes to clean their hands and face before and after eating. This helps to prepare all children well for their eventual move to school.

Overall, staff encourage children to count and develop number recognition as they play. Pre-school children count the number of chairs around the table and inform visitors of their age and show them this figure on the wall display. However, staff are less focused on supporting younger children's understanding of early mathematical language.

Partnerships with parents are strong. Staff encourage parents to share what they know about children when they start at the setting. Staff keep parents up to date and involve them with children's ongoing progress.

Parents are invited to attend stay-and-play sessions so that they can experience first hand how children learn. Parents comment on the positive steps taken to improve the provision since the last inspection and say how well their children are developing.Staff are knowledgeable about the children and families attending the setting.

They use this information to enhance children's experiences. For example, they take children on outings to local parks, places of worship and restaurants. This widens their knowledge of the community, other cultures and lifestyles.

Children really enjoy playing outdoors. Here they have many opportunities to develop their physical skills. Children begin to learn how to take risks safely as they climb steps and jump on and off fixed benches.

They confidently use wheeled toys, manoeuvring these safely in and around obstacles.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Since the last inspection, the manager has ensured that all staff have updated their safeguarding training.

This includes knowledge of wider safeguarding concerns such as female genital mutilation and the 'Prevent' duty. Subsequently, staff demonstrate a robust knowledge of how to identify signs of potential abuse and how to report this. Furthermore, staff know what to do if they have concerns about another member of staff's conduct towards children.

Risk assessments are completed daily to ensure that areas children access are safe and suitable. Robust recruitment procedures ensure that staff are suitable to work with children.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nuse every opportunity to model language to support the development of speech for younger children nextend the programme of professional development, to further increase knowledge and skills and raise the quality of teaching to a higher level nenhance the teaching of mathematics to help younger children gain a secure understanding of early concepts relating to shape, space and measure.