Mouse House Nursery School SW18

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children are extremely confident and highly motivated learners. Staff spend a lot of time finding out about children's personalities and preferences, and know them exceptionally well.

For instance, children access extremely well-resourced activities based on children's interests to ensure they settle into the nursery successfully. Staff have strong and nurturing relationships with children, and value them highly as individuals. All children, including the youngest, develop strong independence skills.

For example, they prepare their own fruit snacks, put on their coats and tidy up meticulously, at appropriate tim...es. Staff work diligently and successfully to ensure that all children develop very robust, healthy lifestyles. For instance, they provide special days themed around healthy eating where parents are invited into the nursery for breakfast.

Staff discuss what makes a healthy breakfast, and children help to prepare it. Children behave exceptionally well. For instance, children have excellent understanding of group rules shared with them, and older children often remind their younger peers of positive ways to behave.

Children display great skill in resolving disagreements between themselves. Children have excellent understanding of how to behave safely. For instance, they carry out supervised risk assessments of the outdoor area to help prevent hazards.

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

Staff offer a very inspiring and stimulating range of activities. They carry out detailed, comprehensive observations of children and use this information exceptionally well to provide a high level of challenge for children. Children make excellent progress.

Staff check children's progress carefully, and provide very well-tailored support to those needing extra help.Staff enable children to gain excellent early literacy skills. For example, children take part in well-designed physical development sessions to music where children practise a range of precise movements linked to supporting early writing skills.

Children have an excellent understanding of letters and the sounds they represent, and many can recognise and write their own names.Children have exceptional understanding of their feelings and how to manage them. Staff teach them about different emotions and how to recognise what they are feeling.

For example, children say things such as 'I am really excited about this' and 'I am confused'. Children have high regard for others from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Staff discuss and celebrate a full range of cultural and religious festivals with the children to support their understanding of other cultures.

Staff provide extremely well-considered opportunities for children to develop their creative skills. For example, children use a wide variety of flexible, natural and man-made materials to create two- and three-dimensional objects entirely from their own imaginations. They often make complex and detailed artwork and models.

Children develop excellent physical skills. For instance, a specialist yoga teacher provides comprehensive sessions on physical coordination, balance and movement. This supports all children, but particularly those children who need extra help in this area.

A sports coach visits the nursery each week when children take part in organised activities to develop a wide variety of physical skills.Staff give very high levels of support to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They form very successful partnerships with parents and others involved in the children's care and learning.

All information is shared and used to promote excellent learning experiences for children. Staff ensure that plans for children's learning are comprehensive and include relevant targets, which are regularly reviewed to help children to make exceptional progress.Staff have highly effective partnerships with parents.

They provide a vast range of ways for parents to support their children's learning, such as home-learning activity ideas, and letters and sounds games to support early literacy skills very well. Staff ensure that parents are kept up to date on their children's progress in a range of ways.The manager provides very good levels of support to staff.

For instance, staff have received training on self-care skills to support their well-being. The manager meets with staff individually and regularly to discuss work and training needs. For example, staff have attended a course on supporting children's communication, language and literacy skills.

This led to more effective storytelling sessions and lots of songs and nursery rhymes to support children's learning very successfully.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff have very thorough knowledge and understanding of potential signs of concern regarding a child's welfare.

They have total understanding of procedures to follow to manage their concerns. The manager has put in place comprehensive systems to identify and support any children who require it. Staff attend regular and comprehensive training to update their skills and knowledge.

The manager carries out robust background checks on staff to ensure suitability for their roles. Staff have thorough knowledge of the 'Prevent' duty to safeguard children. They talk to children about how to be safe online and provide comprehensive information to parents on keeping their children safe when using the internet.