Mulberry Corner Nursery & Preschool

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff know all the children well. They focus strongly on meeting children's individual care needs, consistently supporting their personal and emotional well-being.

For example, when children arrive at the nursery, staff provide reassurance that successfully enables them to settle and feel secure. Children are motivated to learn and enjoy being at the nursery.Overall, staff provide children with an ambitious curriculum.

They use their good knowledge of children's individual needs to provide them with a wide range of interesting activities and resources that motivate them to explore and learn. For example, they teach chi...ldren about the weather as they splash about in rain puddles while wearing waterproof suits and boots. Staff provide a wide range of activities that support children's sensory development.

For example, they provide opportunities for children to crush and smell garlic and fresh herbs and to explore dried cereal and pasta mixed with cocoa powder. Staff support children's mathematical development well. For example, they teach them to count toy dinosaurs and leaves in sand, extending this development as children enjoy counting the number of spikes on the dinosaurs' tails.

Staff have clear expectations for children's behaviour. They support children well to understand and manage their emotions. For example, together with other agencies and parents, they create and use plans that successfully gain children's cooperation and develop their social skills.

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

There has been a change of ownership, and the leadership team has established good systems to oversee the quality of the provision and to support staff. Managers review the quality of children's care and learning and work well with staff to continually improve outcomes for children. For example, staff have recently adapted daily routines to improve transitions for children between lunchtimes and sleep times.

As a result, routines now focus more on children's individual needs, and they are happier and more relaxed.The new leadership team has successfully implemented a number of changes that have improved outcomes for children. Managers coach and support staff to improve the curriculum overall, including the learning environment.

For example, staff have created an outdoor art studio that supports children's creativity and provokes their curiosity to engage in art activities. Additionally, children now have access to an outdoor book area, which staff use to support children's literacy development further.Staff provide children with positive role models.

They respond to the choices that children make during their play and show interest in what they say and do. For instance, when children choose to play in a home corner, staff join in and introduce animal hand puppets that inspire children to use their imagination and talk.Overall, staff support children well to learn and use a wide range of vocabulary.

For example, they teach older children about the meaning of words and words that rhyme.Staff provide some activities that support children's physical development well. For example, children enjoy music and movement, yoga and using equipment during outings to playgrounds.

However, although children spend time engaged in these activities, staff do not focus on this area of development as strongly as other areas of the curriculum. Therefore, although children generally progress well in their physical development, they are not consistently challenged.Children develop useful skills for future learning.

For example, staff skilfully develop children's concentration during group activities, such as story times. Children eagerly join in with parts of the stories they know. Staff build on children's interest in books to extend their learning further.

For example, they help children to make a play bug house after listening to a story about insects.Children learn to behave well. For instance, staff explain to children what is going to happen next during routine events and use large sand timers to help them learn to take turns.

They develop children's confidence and sense of pride, for example as they receive praise for their achievements.Staff successfully develop children's independence. For example, they help older children learn to serve themselves at mealtimes and to use safe knives to cut up fruit to eat at snack time.

Children learn to work together to help tidy up the resources.Overall, partnerships with parents are strong. Staff provide a friendly greeting when parents arrive to drop off their children.

They share information with all parents about their child's progress. However, they do not take steps to check that the information they share has been understood, for example by parents who speak English as an additional language. This does not fully support continuity between home and the nursery for all children.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: strengthen the implementation of the intended curriculum to consistently extend and challenge children's physical development nenhance communication with parents so that information about children's progress is shared effectively with each family.