Plus Three Nurseries Ltd @ Martins Heron

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children thrive in this setting. They enjoy making magic potions with coloured waters and herbs, while learning new words and the sounds letters make. Children form strong trusting relationships with staff and their peers.

Children's behaviour is exceptional at all times. They help one another, share and offer affection to each other as they play and learn. The setting has strong links with the community it serves and children learn to respect their environment.

For example, they learn the importance of recycling and caring for plants. Children develop good independence skills. Staff praise them for all attempts they m...ake to complete tasks by themselves.

This helps them to develop exceptionally high levels of self-esteem and develop a wide range of skills, which will help them with future learning. There is a strong focus on language development. All staff encourage a love of books and teach children new words at every opportunity.

Children have learnt to separate from parents comfortably at the door since Covid-19 restrictions. They arrive confident and happy, independently using sanitisers and enthusiastic to see their friends. Many children have attended throughout periods of lockdown and the setting offers high levels of support to their whole families.

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

All staff know children well. They assess what children know and can do, then carefully plan for individual children who need to catch up with areas of their development. For example, staff plan turn-taking activities and use a variety of methods to help children learn to express their emotions appropriately.

Staff create a warm and inclusive environment where children feel safe to make choices in their play and have a go at new activities. Staff have recently planned more heartbeat raising exercise. For example, children love trampolining and soft play, they share these resources exceptionally well with their friends.

Children enjoy a selection of activities in small and larger groups. For example, they go on listening walks to discuss the sounds they hear and role play having porridge, like the three bears in their story. At times, planned activities encourage larger groups.

This prevents some children from being fully involved and means they wait a long time to have their turn. However, staff are deployed well and ensure children effectively continue their learning elsewhere.Staff work closely with speech and language professionals who help identify strategies for developing children's speech and vocabulary.

Staff add words during activities and repeat them, giving children plenty of time to respond and develop their communication skills.Staff introduce the language of mathematics during all activities. For example, they count scoops of coloured water and encourage children to recognise the numbers of the hopscotch grid they line up on each day.

Children consider how things get bigger as they grow, such as plants and their chrysalides, which they watch turning into butterflies each year.Parents and carers express their gratitude for the extra support the setting has offered them during the pandemic. At times, they would benefit from further information about the things their children are learning, to enable them to work in partnership and extend children's learning at home.

However, they speak highly about the information shared on the setting's private social media page during the Covid-19 pandemic, which gave them ideas for activities.Staff attend training opportunities which have given them confidence to support children with speech and language delays. The provider invested time to develop her skills with a mental health first-aid course.

This has helped her support the whole team and families at the setting during the Covid-19 pandemic.Additional funding is used effectively to support children with a variety of needs. A strong focus on preparing children for transition to school is considered when purchasing new resources.

Individual needs such as uniforms, mathematics resources and trips to develop understanding of the world are carefully considered by leaders.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff have an exceptionally good understanding of their roles and responsibilities to safeguard children.

They work closely with a variety of professionals and undertake regular training to update their knowledge. All staff know the procedures to follow if they have a safeguarding concern about a member of staff or a child. The provider has robust systems for safer recruitment.

She has recently revised systems for attendance monitoring and recording of absences to ensure children are safe. Staff undertake daily risk assessments to ensure the nursery is safe for children.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: develop systems even further to share information with parents and carers about the key-person role and which next steps their children are working towards review the organisations of group times, to ensure children are not waiting for too long and can be fully involved with all activities.