The Butterfly Patch

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children are looked after by a very caring and nurturing staff team. Staff demonstrate a genuine enthusiasm and passion for their work with children. They have a high expectation for each child and all children thrive in their care.

Children are highly motivated to join in the excellent range of activities on offer. They benefit from the staff's excellent teaching skills, which ignite their curiosity and inspire them to learn. Children experience a language- and sensory-rich learning environment.

Staff join in with children's play, providing a narrative as they explore and experiment. As toddlers explore beads f...illed with water, staff question which are 'light', 'small', 'heavy' and 'large'. As children prepare lunch for each other, staff ask them to describe what pasta shells look and feel like.

Children use their emerging speaking skills to describe shells as 'bumpy' and they 'live on the beach'. Children demonstrate an exceptional understanding of how to manage their behaviour. Many children manage to resolve disputes independently and others do so with minimal support from staff.

Children consistently display excellent behaviour due to well-established boundaries and rules. Staff teach children to be kind, show compassion and respect others. The exceptional staff team creates an extremely happy and harmonious atmosphere throughout the nursery.

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

The manager uses a wide variety of extremely effective ways to manage staff performance to maintain the quality of teaching at the highest level. She skilfully targets staff's individual professional development opportunities to extend their knowledge and skills even further. For example, staff have researched a range of teaching methods to support girls' learning in science and mathematics.

Girls have been highly inquisitive in scientific activities such as colour change.Staff observe, assess and plan meticulously for what children need to learn next and they ensure that children take part in activities that challenge and extend their learning. For example, older children work together to create an igloo in outdoor play.

Together they problem solve how to erect a white sheet to create their igloo. This problem solving prepares them extremely well for their future success.Toddlers show high levels of concentration and perseverance, such as when they build igloos using sugar cubes.

Staff place real food items in pretend play and children notice the weight of a tin of tuna when they share with their friends, making comments such as, 'oh, this is really heavy'. Together they explore how Brussels sprouts are attached to stalks. Staff ask questions that help children build on what they know about vegetables and share their favourites.

Babies show extremely high levels of curiosity as they explore an excellent range of sensory play items. They show great delight as they scoop up and drop glitter, smell vanilla in play dough and feel coffee beans, under the close supervision of staff. They smile warmly at staff which demonstrates they feel very safe and secure in their care.

Children have wonderful opportunities to develop a strong understanding of who they are. For example, staff responded rapidly when one young child used small plastic tongs to straighten their hair in pretend play. When staff question if parents do this at home the child smiles in recognition.

Staff provided a mirror and talked to children about their families and their home-life experiences. This helps children gain extremely high levels of self-esteem.Staff keep parents very well informed of their children's daily experiences and development.

Regular newsletters let parents know which activities and events have been planned for the coming weeks. This enables parents to be deeply involved in their children's learning. Parents welcome the activity packs provided which help them to support their children's learning at home.

Children have excellent opportunities to develop early literacy skills. Older children write for a purpose, such as when they research words linked to Christmas and then choose to write these freely. Young children thoroughly enjoy story times and staff skilfully use books to extend and challenge their learning during activities.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Managers are highly committed to keeping children safe. Staff complete regular child protection training.

They read a wealth of safeguarding literature, conduct online research and discuss and analyse real child protection cases in team meetings. This helps to keep their knowledge of the wider issues of safeguarding current. Staff confidently identify possible indicators of abuse and refer to relevant agencies as required.

The provider ensures that she follows robust safer recruitment procedures to ensure that staff caring for children are, and remain, suitable to do so. All staff receive thorough training to secure their understanding of their roles and responsibilities. Extremely detailed risk assessments and the excellent deployment of staff safeguard children's well-being.