Prenton Penguins Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

The inspirational and highly skilled staff team create an enticing and enriching learning environment in which both children and adults thrive. Staff gather a wealth of important information about children when they first start to attend. They use this information superbly to quickly settle children, meet their needs and foster children's deep sense of security and belonging.

Children demonstrate impressive confidence in their skills as learners and are eager co-creators of the unique and ambitious curriculum. As a result, every single opportunity becomes a chance to build on previous learning and learn more. Staff are h...ighly responsive to children's ideas and use their emerging interests to inspire their love of learning.

For example, children's interest in fruit and vegetables leads to conversations about how our food travels through our bodies to our stomachs. Staff have incredibly high expectations of what children can achieve. They work tirelessly to create the very best conditions for learning.

Staff are exceptional role models, who teach children to recognise and manage their own emotions incredibly well. Young children recognise when their friends may, on occasion, be feeling sad. They offer their friendship to help them feel happy again.

Such close and caring bonds help to create a wonderfully harmonious atmosphere, where all children behave impeccably.

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

The nursery's curriculum demonstrates leaders' excellent understanding of how to sequence children's learning. Staff have an impressive knowledge of how young children learn and develop.

Children's learning is meticulously monitored and each step is very purposefully planned. Staff are deeply aware of the important key skills children must acquire to be successful in the future. For example, children are provided with a wide range of craft opportunities to manipulate and strengthen the muscles in their hands in readiness for early writing.

All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), are supported to make outstanding progress over time. The knowledgeable SEND coordinator is extremely proactive in supporting families. Staff are fastidious in their approach to working with outside agencies.

This means that children very swiftly receive the support they need to thrive.Books are at the heart of the curriculum. Staff identify core story books they wish children to become familiar with when developing their love of literacy.

These books provide the bedrock for increasingly complex discussions about story sequence, characters and plots. Children build an impressive knowledge of how stories are constructed. This leads to children telling stories from memory and, eventually, telling friends stories they themselves have imagined.

Children demonstrate an impressive understanding of language. Staff skilfully identify the new vocabulary they wish to introduce to children as they engage in activities and play in the rich learning environment. For example, as children talk about their bodies, they learn to use words, such as spine, kidneys and stomach.

Children find the playful approach to extending their use of complex language deeply engaging. As a result, children are impressive communicators.Children demonstrate the characteristics of effective learners in abundance.

Opportunities for them to practise their skills and apply their knowledge in new situations are plentiful. Children confidently solve problems and try out their ideas. For example, when attempting to secure the lid on a teapot, children confidently develop their own ideas.

They predict what they think may happen and adapt their strategies when something does not work. This successfully promotes children's resilience and a 'can-do' attitude to their learning.The arrangements for the supervision and support of staff are comprehensive.

Leaders observe and identify aspects of staff teaching that can be enhanced even further. Staff are encouraged to learn from each other and share their excellent teaching skills. This helps to promote impressive consistency in the quality of teaching.

Furthermore, precisely targeted professional development opportunities and involvement in a range of research projects help to keep staff up to date. Staff are exceptionally skilled and deeply reflective practitioners.Partnerships with parents are extremely robust and successful.

Staff provide a wealth of information on children's progress. Parents value the ideas and support that staff give to help them contribute and extend their child's learning consistently at home. For example, parents comment that the use of the home book loan scheme, the 'reading penguin', has successfully led their child into the world of non-fiction texts.

Parents remark that they 'simply could not be happier with Prenton Penguins as a setting'.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.