Moortown Preschool & Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The management team leads a committed and passionate team of staff who share a drive for sustained improvement.

The nursery environment is well planned and stimulating. Staff make good use of assessments to focus on what skills children need to acquire to move them forward. They plan well to include a wide range of exciting experiences that motivate children to learn and practise their skills.

Children access a range of exciting opportunities that captivate their curiosity. They are keen to participate in activities. For example, children join in with the volcano experiment and shout with glee when the 'lava' erupts fr...om the top.

An effective key-person system supports young children who are new to the setting to settle quickly. Children form secure attachments with staff and seek comfort when they are upset. They regularly lean in for a cuddle, which staff are happy to give.

Staff are extremely responsive and caring. This helps children to develop the confidence to explore their surroundings. Children feel safe and secure.

Staff are good role models. They create an ethos of warmth and friendliness, which helps children develop self-confidence and very positive attitudes to learning. Children behave well.

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

Recruitment processes are robust to help ensure the suitability of adults working with children. Staff complete mandatory training, such as safeguarding and first aid to keep their knowledge up to date. Staff ratios are maintained at all times and staff are deployed effectively, providing high levels of supervision.

Staff talk to children in a sensitive way, which supports their emotional well-being and helps them to feel safe and secure. They talk to children about their feelings and the feelings of others. This helps children to understand how their actions can affect others and encourages them to think about ways they can be kind.

Managers and staff are very good at early identification of children's needs. They are quick to put into place strategies that are needed to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Strong links exist between the nursery and outside agencies.

They work closely with parents and other professionals to ensure interventions are in place to close gaps in children's learning.Staff engage children in interactive story sessions as they go on a 'bear hunt' through various terrains. They encourage children to use their imaginations well as they 'shiver' and pretend to walk through mud and splash through water.

Overall, partnerships with parents are good. Families praise the care and support the staff provide for their children.Staff are particularly skilled at using songs to support children's communication, language and understanding of rhythm.

They play the guitar as they sing and children of all ages excitedly join in with a variety of familiar songs, remembering the words and actions well.Children are supported effectively when they move to a new room. They build bonds with staff who are new to them prior to moving, which supports their positive emotional well-being.

Staff are fully involved in self-evaluation. The management team holds regular opportunities to feedback to staff, including meetings and individual supervisions. Staff comment that they feel very well supported.

Children are supported to lead healthy lifestyles. They receive healthy and nutritious meals and snacks. Children have daily access to the vast outdoor areas.

They have many opportunities to develop their physical skills. For instance, they climb and balance confidently and are learning to manage their own risks.Although some staff's teaching is outstanding, this is not consistent throughout the nursery and leads to some variations in the standard of teaching and learning.

Arrangements for sharing information with parents are not fully effective in ensuring they are kept up to date with their individual children's learning in the nursery.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff understand how to protect children from harm.

They have a good knowledge of the signs and symptoms of child abuse, such as neglect, and wider child protection issues. Staff know to immediately report any concerns to a manager, including those about a colleague. The management team ensures that staff's knowledge and understanding of child protection procedures are constantly refreshed.

Policies and procedures are robust and regularly reviewed. Risk assessments of the premises and resources help to ensure the environment for learning is safe.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nimprove the monitoring of staff to support greater consistency in teaching practice throughout the nursery, to raise the quality to a higher level nextend information sharing with parents to provide even more information about children's learning.