The Cottage Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children are greeted with a warm welcome by the leaders and practitioners. They confidently enter their group room and settle quickly, demonstrating that they feel safe and secure.

The effective key-person system allows children time during the settling-in process to bond with practitioners. This informs practitioners' decisions about the key person which children will have. This good practice helps to support children to feel emotionally secure.

Children behave well. They show an understanding of the 'golden rules' and practitioners provide them with gentle reminders throughout the day when needed. Children follow rou...tines well and respond positively to instructions from practitioners.

All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make substantial progress from their starting points in learning. Leaders have a clear learning intention for children. Practitioners have a good understanding of these, and implement them when planning and teaching the curriculum.

Children are provided with many experiences that support all areas of learning. For example, children learn about the world around them during forest school and science sessions.

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

Leaders are committed to achieving good outcomes for children.

They support practitioners and apprentices with their continuous professional development. Leaders provide training opportunities based on the individual needs and interests of the practitioners. This ensures that children receive a good quality of education.

Practitioners support children's communication and language by talking to them during their play. They repeat back what children say with the correct sentence structure. However, there are times, such as lunch time, when practitioners do not always talk with children.

This does not support children to consistently extend their communication and conversation skills.Children benefit from many opportunities to be physically active and develop their core strength. They have regular access to the garden and forest school area.

They use equipment, such as scooters and a climbing frame. Babies have their own outdoor space, where they can safely move and explore their environment.Children learn about cultures beyond their own.

Practitioners plan cultural celebrations that reflect the children who attend. The nursery has a range of resources to promote diversity. For example, practitioners provide food and packaging from around the world in the role-play home area.

This helps children to learn about different food, see print in other languages and to respect other people and communities.Children who speak English as an additional language settle well. Practitioners gather key words and phrases from parents and learn how to pronounce them correctly.

This helps children to communicate. Practitioners use familiar music from children's cultures to help to give them a sense of belonging.Practitioners recognise the importance of children learning about their feelings.

They provide resources and activities that support children with understanding and managing their feelings, such as circle time and emotions books. However, staff do not always use these, and children are not supported consistently to understand and manage their feelings across the setting.Practitioners implement a curriculum that focuses on promoting children's independence and confidence.

All children have good opportunities to be independent. For instance, babies freely access their own beakers of water from a low-level shelf. Older children serve their own food and pour their own drinks.

Children have access to a wide range of books and practitioners re-enact stories with children. Practitioners plan activities around the 'book of the week' to help children to develop a love of reading. For instance, children excitedly investigate how to make a house for pigs using straw and sticks.

This helps to promote children's literacy skills.Practitioners work in partnership with parents. They communicate daily through a communication app and face to face.

This supports parents to keep up to date on their child's development. Parents are happy with the nursery. They speak positively about the communication from the leaders and practitioners and the education which their children receive.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.All staff have good knowledge and understanding of how to keep children safe from harm. They are confident to follow the correct procedures should they have concerns about a child in their care.

This includes whistle-blowing against colleagues and managers. Leaders adhere to robust recruitment procedures and ensure that all staff complete mandatory training, such as safeguarding and paediatric first aid.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: provide more opportunities to develop children's conversational skills to support their language and communication build on opportunities to consistently support children to understand and communicate their feelings and emotions.