URN 2825765 · Inspected 2026-03-02 · Published 2026-05-05 · Inspector: Sarah Dukes
Treetops Nursery Unique reference number (URN): 2825765 Address: Treetops Nursery, Bushey Fields Road, Dudley, DY1 2LU Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registered with Ofsted: 12/03/2025 Registers: EYR, CCR, VCR Registered person: Minoa Treetops LTD Inspection report: 2 March 2026 Exceptional Strong standard Expected standard Needs attention Urgent improvement Safeguarding standards met The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, children are made safer and feel safe. How we evaluate safeguarding When we inspect settings for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes: Met: The setting has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not met: The setting has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met. Strong standard Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Strong standard Children feel secure and confident in a wholly positive environment, where expectations for behaviour are clear and widely understood. Positive behaviour is consistently promoted through a 'time in' approach, emotion coaching and personalised strategies, ensuring children feel safe, included and ready to engage fully in learning. Staff successfully build warm, respectful relationships with children and their families. They provide calm, fair guidance that reflects children's age, stage of development and individual needs. Children learn to collaborate, take turns, share resources and manage minor conflicts with adult support. They develop the social, emotional and self-regulation skills they will need in later life. Staff model emotional language, helping children identify and express feelings and consider others' perspectives. For example, when children move away from an activity and lose a space at the table, staff calmly explain and offer an alternative, helping them manage disappointment and reengage in learning. Staff have established a wonderfully nurturing environment, where routines are supported through visual prompts, now-and-next boards, social stories and gentle reinforcement, including adaptations for children who need further support. Children transition smoothly between activities, tidy resources and respond promptly to instructions. Mealtimes and daily routines promote independence, self-help skills and inclusion. Leaders maintain strong communication with families, emphasising the importance of regular attendance, offering additional support where needed. Children's welfare and wellbeing Strong standard Care practices are highly effective in meeting all children's individual needs. Staff gather detailed information from parents when children first start, including routines, dietary requirements, medical needs and family backgrounds. They use this to personalise care and learning. individually tailored settling-in sessions and a well-implemented key-person approach ensure children feel secure and included from the outset. Secure and highly responsive, nurturing relationships are established between staff and children. This helps children form strong attachments and supports their emotional security, thereby, enabling children to develop high levels of confidence self-esteem. Staff encourage children to develop their independence in personal care, health and wellbeing through consistent hygiene routines, such as wiping noses, handwashing and toileting. Routines such as for sleeping and weaning are carefully organised to meet children's individual needs, providing consistency and security. Staff use meaningful and highly effective strategies, such as emotion coaching, language modelling and discussion during play and story sessions, to help children to recognise, express and manage their emotions. Consequently, children feel safe, valued and included. They benefit from a superbly nurturing environment that supports their independence, resilience and readiness for learning. Inclusion Strong standard Inclusion is a significant strength. Leaders identify needs early and provide targeted, responsive support. Staff benefit from a range of high-quality training opportunities and are confident in assessing children's needs, completing referrals and ensuring processes are followed correctly. They work closely with external professionals, including speech and language therapists and local authority advisors, to ensure children have the support they need. Individual support plans are reviewed regularly, with clear, measurable targets. This means that children make continued progress from their starting points. Staff consistently use adaptations, such as signing, images and symbols, visual timelines and home-language key words to scaffold understanding. For children who speak English as an additional language, staff model English phrases while sensitively reinforcing key vocabulary in home languages, as shared by parents. Additional funding is used purposefully and strategically to benefit eligible children. For instance, the purchase of scooters to encourage physical activity and increased attendance to improve engagement and confidence. Parents speak positively about communication and feel involved in all decision-making. Children known to children's social care receive sensitive, closely monitored support. Staff build trusting relationships that foster stability and belonging. This strategic and sustained approach ensures that all children make meaningful progress in their learning and development. Leadership and governance Strong standard Leaders are reflective, strategic and firmly child-focused. They have a clear understanding of the setting's strengths and areas for development and take swift, decisive action to address any issues that arise. Following previous concerns, safeguarding reporting systems have been strengthened and dietary management procedures revised to ensure children's health, safety, and wellbeing are consistently prioritised. Leaders have identified improving the outdoor environment and embedding further opportunities for children to develop independence, particularly at mealtimes, as key priorities. For example, they recognise that while children confidently use knives to slice fruit at snack time, they are not always given them at lunchtime to extend this skill. Professional development is purposeful, collaborative and carefully targeted to strengthen staff practice and provide the best possible support for children. Staff access a wide range of local authority and bespoke training, with learning effectively cascaded across the team. Regular supervisions and mentoring focus on professional growth, with high levels of support for staff wellbeing, ensuring strong morale and consistently high-quality practice. Expected standard Leaders monitor curriculum implementation through regular audits and reflective reviews to ensure provision meets the needs of all children. Funding is used strategically to remove barriers and enrich experiences. Well-established and highly positive relationships with families, alongside rigorous and robust procedures, create a safe and inclusive setting where all children thrive across all areas of their learning and development Achievement Expected standard Children typically make steady progress across all areas of their learning. They communicate confidently and effectively with staff and their peers. Toddlers combine 2 words with support, such as 'push car' or 'big ball', while others use signing and visual prompts to communicate effectively. Children thoroughly enjoy imaginative play, creative activities and shared story sessions, which strengthen their communication and thinking skills. Older children use increasingly complex language to retell events and express their ideas as they share and retell familiar stories. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, those with English as an additional language and those who may face other barriers to their learning make measurable progress from their starting points through personalised next steps and inclusive play-based activities. Children develop their physical skills through activities, such as rolling, squeezing and stretching dough and slime and transferring water using pipettes. Older children develop and use an effective tripod grip when mark making. Children build their confidence, independence and social skills through collaborative and interactive play, and self-help opportunities, such as feeding themselves and using equipment safely. Children are curious, engaged and become increasingly ready for the next stage of learning, including the move to school. Curriculum and teaching Expected standard Leaders have a clear understanding of the quality of the curriculum and teaching. The curriculum is well planned and sequenced across all areas of learning. There is a sharp focus on communication and language, physical and personal, social and emotional development. Staff provide purposeful support for language and communication, modelling vocabulary and promoting discussions that encourage children's critical thinking skills. Activities such as sensory story sessions, imaginative play and the story-based play successfully develop children's communication, mathematical understanding and physical skills, while supporting their social development. Assessment is used to monitor progress and tailor teaching to children's starting points and next steps for learning. Children are confident, motivated and engage fully in their learning. Therefore, they develop the knowledge and skills that prepare them for the next stage. However, opportunities to extend learning and independence are not always consistently used. Older children are not provided with appropriate utensils at mealtimes. In other learning activities, staff do not consistently identify opportunities to extend children's learning through play. For example, they use closed questioning and miss opportunities to model learning, such as using scissors correctly or counting a set of objects. This limits the amount of progress children can make from their starting points during an activity. Compulsory Childcare Register requirements This setting has met the requirements of the compulsory part of the Childcare Register. How we check if a provider meets the requirements of the Compulsory Childcare Register When we check if settings meet the Compulsory Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes: Met Not met Voluntary Childcare Register requirements This setting has met the requirements of the voluntary part of Childcare Register. How we check if a provider meets the requirements of the Voluntary Childcare Register When we check if settings meet the Voluntary Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes: Met Not met What it's like to be a child at this setting Staff have a clear understanding of the curriculum and of individual children's developmental needs. Regular attendance is promoted and all children access a broad and balanced curriculum that supports their development in all areas of their learning. Children consistently demonstrate very high levels of curiosity and engagement in activities across the setting. They confidently explore sensory materials, sustain concentration during storytelling and imaginative play and eagerly follow their own interests. Staff use children's fascinations effectively to motivate learning. As a result, children are keen to participate and demonstrate consistently high levels of engagement and positive attitudes to their learning. A very effective key-person system and highly effective partnerships with parents enable children to quickly form secure attachments with caring staff. These wonderfully warm and nurturing relationships are clearly evident at all times. Staff provide a warm, welcoming and wholly inclusive environment, where children's emotional wellbeing is prioritised. Children seek comfort and reassurance, when needed, and show resilience and growing independence in managing their feelings. They feel safe, secure and confident. Clear expectations for children's behaviour are well embedded and consistently applied across the setting. This consistent approach helps children to understand boundaries and expectations in ways that are appropriate to their age and stage of development. Staff provide timely emotional support, resulting in confident, cooperative and respectful children, who are well prepared for their next stage. Next steps Leaders should ensure that opportunities to develop children's independence, particularly at mealtimes, are consistently used to give children more chance to build these skills. Leaders should make full use of activities to extend children's learning, ensuring they are suitably challenging and support all children to make the best possible progress. About this inspection The inspector spoke with leaders, staff, parents and children during the inspection. We carried out this inspection under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 on the quality and standards of provision that is registered on the Early Years Register. The registered person must ensure that this provision complies with the statutory framework for children's learning, development and care, known as the early years foundation stage. Inspector: Sarah Dukes About this setting Unique reference number (URN): 2825765 Address: Treetops Nursery Bushey Fields Road Dudley DY1 2LU Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registration date: 12/03/2025 Registered person: Minoa Treetops LTD Register(s): EYR, CCR, VCR Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 08:00 - 18:00 Local authority: Dudley Facts and figures used on inspection This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection. This data is from 2 March 2026 Children numbers Age range of children at the time of inspection 1 to 4 Total number of places 77 Our grades explained Exceptional Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other settings can learn from it. Strong standard The setting reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them. Expected standard The setting is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them. Needs attention The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements. Urgent improvement The setting needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care. The Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) inspects services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk. You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. 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