Mulberry Bush Nursery Walmersley

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

All children, from babies up to pre-school, are extremely happy, settled and engaged in learning.

This leads to a calm, safe and relaxed atmosphere. Each member of the high-quality staff team is very well deployed in all rooms. This means they are quickly on hand to provide every child with the bespoke care and support they need.

Children of all ages have developed very secure relationships with staff. Children confidently go to staff when seeking comfort and cuddles or to help them resolve any conflicts or problems.Children understand, respect, and follow the rules and routines of the setting.

They are... extremely kind towards each other and are developing secure and respectful friendships. Staff purposefully help children to learn to do things for themselves from a young age. This leads to high levels of independence and a determination to succeed among the children.

Children delight in their achievements and bask in the copious praise they consistently receive from staff.All staff purposefully engage in children's play and learning. They thoughtfully provide a wide range of activities and resources that they know will ignite children's interests.

This encourages children to explore and learn, which they do with great excitement. Staff are highly skilled in knowing exactly when to challenge and extend children's learning, and when to let them experiment, test out their own ideas, and learn for themselves. This leads to an industrious environment where all children are highly focused on their play.

They are very keen and able to learn new things and develop their skills, and are making exceptional progress.

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

All children have access to a well-sequenced and challenging curriculum that builds on what they know and can do. Children are also provided with a vast range of experiences they may not have at home, such as yoga, football, dance, French, and ample opportunities to play and explore outdoors.

These enhancements to the curriculum ensure children's learning and development progresses at a swift pace. This prepares them exceptionally well for any move up to another room or on to school, a view endorsed by parents and schools.Staff are highly skilled in helping children embed prior learning, and build on this further.

For example, they use a familiar story, props and photographs with children to remind them of their recent learning experience of caring for caterpillars through their change into butterflies. Children sample different fruits linked to the story, and broaden their vocabulary as they confidently share their views on how they look, taste and smell. This quality of teaching helps children secure a high level of knowledge, understanding, and exceptional progress.

The nursery provides a truly language-rich environment. Staff fully understand the importance of children hearing and becoming familiar with lots of words to develop their communication skills, particularly after some children have fallen behind in this area due to the impact of COVID-19. They consistently encourage and reinforce babies' and toddlers' babbles and early attempts at words.

They model the correct pronunciations, ensuring the children can see their mouths as they form the words. Staff constantly engage older children in conversations so they can practise and develop their communication and language skills.Children of all ages are developing a love of books and stories.

In all rooms, books are strategically placed and attractively displayed to encourage children to use them. Babies and children regularly look at books and often take their favourite ones to staff and sit themselves down on their lap, requesting they read them the story. Staff tell stories with enthusiasm, and encourage children to engage, maintaining their interest for prolonged periods.

This develops children's literacy skills well, in readiness for school.Leaders and staff are highly skilled in identifying children with additional needs and understand the importance of doing so swiftly. They have vast knowledge and experiences of supporting parents through the referral process and working with other professionals to secure services and interventions.

Staff confidently use a range of strategies to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, with highly successful outcomes.The excellent leadership team fully invest in the professional development and well-being of all staff. Staff have bespoke training to help them effectively support the children they are caring for.

They routinely observe one another and share best practice and ideas to promote continuous improvement. The achievement and efforts of the staff are regularly rewarded and celebrated so they feel valued. Staff are given time, space and strategies to promote their good health.

This leads to a strong team ethos and high-quality provision.Parents speak highly of the quality of the provision their children receive. They particularly valued the excellent communication and support they received during the pandemic.

This helped assure parents and children that nursery was a safe and normal place to be. Staff took great care to ensure that life and learning at nursery continued for all children, whether they were able to attend or not. This has helped secure the exceptional progress children are making.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Leaders and staff have strong links with a range of professionals in the local authority to ensure children and families have access to the services they need to promote their safety and well-being. Staff are very confident in the processes to follow if they have a concern about a child, including escalating to someone more senior if they do not feel swift action is being taken.

Staff work closely with parents to ensure they fully understand how to provide for children with allergies. Careful menu planning, and robust policies and procedures, are in place and followed. Staff are fully trained in administering emergency medication if required.