Setting leader supports staff to ensure consistently high standards

Information about the setting

Meithrinfa Cae’r Ffair Limited is a Welsh medium nursery in the village of Gorslas, near Llanelli.  Nearly all children speak Welsh at home and a very few have additional learning needs.  The setting opened in 2004 and remains under the same ownership and leadership.  Many practitioners have worked at the setting since it opened.

Context and background to the effective or innovative practice

From the outset, the setting leader has had a powerful vision to provide the best quality care and education for children attending the nursery.  She has high expectations of herself, practitioners and the children.  The leader has succeeded in achieving and sustaining high standards of wellbeing, care and development, teaching and learning consistently over a number of years.  To achieve these high standards, the setting leader invests in the physical and emotional wellbeing of all practitioners.  She leads by example and shows that she values practitioners’ contribution to the setting’s success.  This draws all staff together in a strong team, ready to give of their best, work hard and continually improve their practice. 

Description of nature of strategy or activity

The setting leader communicates effectively with practitioners, listens carefully to their concerns and addresses their needs well. 

All practitioners contribute purposefully to evaluating their performance and identifying the setting’s strengths and areas for development.  They have a personal book to record their individual strengths and any aspect of their work that has been particularly successful as well as development targets.  Practitioners share good practice with each other by modelling strategies or activities that have been particularly successful.  This builds their confidence and creates a positive ethos of continuous improvement in the setting.

Practitioners benefit from appraisals twice a year.  They answer ten questions that focus on their strengths and any areas they would like to develop further.  The setting leader listens carefully to any concerns and requests for training, and acts appropriately. 

The leader ensures that all practitioners have a thorough understanding of child development and benefit from regular training.  Training is often delivered to the setting as a whole to ensure maximum impact.  The setting leader attends training alongside practitioners so that she hears the same messages, understands any challenges and can support practitioners effectively to move forward.  This supports the setting to provide innovative and interesting learning experiences highly successfully.  For example, the setting leader and practitioners were inspired following training about ‘playing outside with the elements’ to work out how they could arrange for children to benefit from campfire activities safely at the setting. 

What impact has this work had on provision and children’s standards?

The setting offers stimulating learning experiences that are highly responsive to individual children’s needs.  Practitioners develop children’s skills extremely effectively in meaningful contexts, including well-planned outdoor learning experiences and carefully thought out visits in the local area.  The standard of care offered in the setting and the quality of the learning environment are exemplary.  Children settle quickly at the setting and are very happy there.  Nearly all children make strong progress in developing a full range of skills from their starting points.