Tynemouth Nursery at Billy Mill

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children enjoy well-planned learning experiences, which prepare them extremely well for the next stage of their learning, including when they eventually leave for school. They form exceptionally strong bonds with the staff, helping them to feel happy and secure.Children are physically active and highly independent.

They confidently serve their own meals, offering the staff food too, without any prompting, displaying care and thoughtfulness to adults. Children demonstrate respect and kindness. At snack time, children ask each other what they would like to drink and then carefully pour and pass the drink.

Staff su...pport children to build strong friendships from an early age. They reinforce turn taking and children are happy to share the resources. For example, when playing with cars, children make sure their friends have all the toys they want.

Children have excellent attitudes to learning. They show genuine enthusiasm for activities, including making dough and mending a broken bicycle. They work as a team, displaying a can-do attitude to achieve their goals.

Children develop a secure knowledge of numbers, and they incorporate counting into their activities themselves. For example, they confidently discuss the number of turns required to tighten the screws on the bike's handlebars, and independently count how many of them are in the queue to go into the garden.

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

Staff have successfully created a culture that enables children to become confident and secure in their attachments to adults.

Staff in the baby room plan activities meticulously to support the development of the children at each stage. Staff demonstrate a deep understanding of children's learning needs and consistently deliver high-quality interactions that effectively build on what children already know. Staff respond immediately to babies' babbling, talking to them and repeating their developing words.

There is a rich, embedded curriculum, which places an emphasis on developing communication skills and language. Staff are highly skilled at supporting children's communication and language. They speak kindly and clearly to the children.

Staff invite children to participate in conversations with them, in which children can share their ideas. As a result, children are supported to become confident and fluent talkers. Singing is frequent and the children join in all the songs with enthusiasm.

Staff are competent at sign language, which they use as additional communication for children.Staff provide exciting activities and teaching is of a consistently high quality throughout the nursery. Staff bring stories to life when they read, and children recall their favourite stories accurately as they join in with enthusiasm and joy.

Staff link stories to activities outside, and children are invited to bring in resources from the garden to use as props when reading.Staff work closely with parents. They keep parents informed about all aspects of their children's care and learning.

Parents are extremely positive about the nursery and the impact it has had on their child's development. They comment on how happily their children come into nursery each day. Parents are guided on how they can extend learning at home.

Children thrive on the activities provided in the garden. For example, the forest nursery garden provides them with the opportunity to use tools for building and to tend to the herbs and vegetables. As a result, children develop a respect for nature and learn about a healthy lifestyle.

Children are supported to develop habits to lead a healthy lifestyle. The children regularly wash their hands before eating. They join in conversations about food and understand that water is required for the brain and that food provides them with energy.

The manager leads the nursery with a strong sense of direction and purpose. The staff are encouraged to continually update and increase their knowledge, and this drives improvement. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are exceptionally well supported, and the curriculum meets their needs.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff are confident in recognising the signs that might indicate a child is at risk from harm. They understand the steps they should take if they are concerned about a child's welfare.

They have a secure knowledge of wider issues that can affect the safety of children, including extremist views and behaviours. The safeguarding procedures are well understood. All staff hold paediatric first-aid training certificates.

There are robust recruitment procedures and regular checks for the ongoing suitability of staff to work with children. The deployment of staff means that children are well supervised wherever they are in the nursery. Additional checks, including an outside register, keep children safe in the garden.