Rectory Lane Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The manager and staff provide a safe and welcoming environment where each child is valued. Children settle quickly and develop secure emotional attachments to their key persons and other staff.

Home visits, prior to children attending, enable staff to obtain information from parents about children's abilities and interests, so that they can tailor the transition to meet the needs of each child and their family. Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. They act as positive role models and implement clear and consistent rules and boundaries to help children to feel safe and secure.

Children demonstrate a po...sitive attitude and respond quickly to instructions, such as when they are asked to tidy up. The dedicated manager and staff share high expectations for every child. They support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities extremely well.

They identify any support required early and are quick to make referrals to the appropriate outside agency. Staff follow the strategies given and develop effective partnerships with parents to ensure consistency in routines between the home and the nursery. As a result, all children are making good progress.

Parents are extremely complimentary about the wonderful support they receive from the staff within the setting, and how well their children have progressed since attending the nursery.

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

The manager and staff complete regular assessments of children's learning. They use this information to quickly identify any gaps and implement targeted support, so that all children make good progress from their starting points.

The manager also uses this model to ensure additional funding is purposefully targeted to help all children achieve the best possible outcomes. Children demonstrate a positive attitude to learning and develop the skills they need for the next stage in learning, including school.Children have a good range of opportunities to support their early writing and literacy skills.

They listen with interest to stories and use the available resources to make marks and record their thoughts and ideas during play. For instance, they scribe the beginning letters of their names in sand and 'write' lists of items they would like to take on a picnic.Children have access to a large range of high-quality toys and resources that support their learning and development successfully.

They demonstrate good levels of determination when encountering difficulties. For example, when they pretend to make pizzas and the toppings repeatedly fall onto the floor, they pick them up and rebuild them, before placing their pizza in the 'oven' to cook.Managers and staff have a strong focus on promoting children's communication and language skills.

They take a genuine interest in what children say and allow them time to think and speak. This helps children become confident talkers.Children enjoy playing in the well-resourced garden.

Staff promote children's physical development well, indoors and outdoors. For example, children benefit from activities to encourage them to move in a variety of ways, and they recognise that their hearts beat faster after they have been physically active.Overall, staff provide children with interesting and exciting activities, and children respond positively to the play experiences.

However, some staff do not consistently make the best use of opportunities to extend the challenge in activities, particularly for the most-able children.Partnerships with parents are strong. The manager and staff use effective communication methods to share information with them, for instance through daily discussions, newsletters and face-to-face meetings.

The manager is committed to providing the best possible care and education for children and leads a well-qualified team. Staff benefit from a detailed induction and regular team and individual meetings. However, there is scope to build further on the professional development programme to continually enhance the skills and knowledge of staff.

Staff give children clear and consistent messages about making healthy food choices as part of leading a healthy lifestyle. Children benefit from healthy snacks and develop good table manners as they sit together, choose their food and pour their drinks from jugs.Children demonstrate good levels of confidence in social situations.

For example, they interact with other children during group activities and chat happily to visitors.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The manager and the staff team understand how to identify the signs and symptoms that could indicate a child is at risk.

They clearly understand how to report any concerns about children's welfare. They have a broad understanding of wider safeguarding issues and how to identify and report any concerns. Robust recruitment procedures ensure that all staff are suitable.

Thorough induction and ongoing support from the managers ensure staff remain alert to their responsibility to keep children safe. Continual supervision, inside and outside, consistently promotes children's safety and well-being.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nenhance the quality of staff interactions, to make best use of activities to extend the learning for the most-able children build further on the professional development programme to continually enhance the skills and knowledge of staff.