Fitzsimmons Place Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

Children are confident and happy in this extremely caring and welcoming nursery. They develop highly secure emotional bonds with staff.

Children are given the best possible start to their early education as staff have created a high-quality and carefully planned curriculum. The manager shows exceptional leadership skills. She demonstrates her high expectations for children's learning and ensuring they are ready for school.

For example, she supports staff in the pre-school room to create a unique, exciting learning environment. Staff challenge the children to use resources in a different way to anything they have... experienced before. They are skilled at observing children's play and meticulously assessing their progress in partnership with parents.

Staff use their excellent knowledge and understanding of how children learn to plan innovative and interesting activities that engage and motivate children. For example, when older children show an interest in the local area, this extends into a topic about places, countries and the wider world. Younger children develop high levels of curiosity as they play with play dough and add herbs that they have grown in the garden.

They use their senses as they explore the changing textures and smells. Children play exceptionally well with their peers. They offer to share their resources and learn to respect the views of others.

For example, children vote for which fruit they would prefer for snack. Children develop highly positive attitudes to learning and are well prepared for the next stage of their education.

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

Staff place a strong emphasis on encouraging conversation and developing children's vocabulary.

For example, each child has a 'chatterbox' into which they can place items from home. Staff then find a special time for children to talk about what they have brought in. This develops children's confidence to talk in small groups and gives them a sense of pride.

It also encourages an awareness of other children's interests, families and cultures.The key-person system is highly effective. Children form strong attachments with the staff who know their routines and provide excellent emotional support.

The bonding and exceptional relationships are further enhanced, for example, as staff sit with their key children in 'family groups' at mealtimes, creating a lovely social occasion.Staff work very hard to involve parents in the life of the nursery. Parents receive a wealth of information to help support their children, the most recent being through an open day to introduce them to Busy Bees' new 'Unleashing Potential' app.

This provides parents and staff with beneficial advice and activity suggestions linked to children's development. Parents comment extremely positively on the exceptional organisation. They appreciate the significant effort made by staff to form a personal relationship with their children and the support for the family as a whole when making transitions from other settings.

The forest school sessions provided by the nursery significantly enhance the exceptional quality of education offered to children. Children learn about their natural environment and how to handle risks. They learn to recycle materials for different purposes and become more resilient to the changeable British weather.

During these sessions, children display high levels of curiosity and extremely positive attitudes to their play and learning.The manager is extremely passionate about her role. She maintains meaningful engagement with staff and motivates them to deliver consistently high levels of care and teaching.

This contributes towards the swift progress that children make in their development. Staff comment that they feel very well supported. They keenly undertake regular and relevant training to benefit the children in their care.

All staff are very enthusiastic. They are confident to explain the learning intention of the activities they plan and successfully evaluate these afterwards to test whether they have met children's learning needs. Staff make every interaction with the children exciting, engaging and enjoyable.

Older children show amazement as they watch their 'volcanoes' erupt in the science lab, toddlers delight in recreating their favourite stories, while babies explore different textures with great interest and enjoy plenty of cuddles.Children are extremely independent and the staff encourage this, as they have high expectations of what children can achieve. Even the youngest children learn to look after their environment as each room has stations at which they can access resources such as dusters and brushes.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The manager follows extremely robust recruitment and vetting procedures to check the suitability of all staff. Supervisions, appraisals and peer-on-peer observations take place regularly, which help the manager to monitor staff's ongoing suitability and maintain their high-quality teaching skills.

Staff put the welfare of children at the heart of all they do. They have an extremely secure understanding of all aspects of safeguarding and are very confident about the action to take and whom to contact if they have any concerns about a child's welfare. All staff receive appropriate, thorough training to secure their understanding of their roles and responsibilities.