Little Munchkins Fareham

Little Munchkins Fareham
Unique reference number (URN): 2870935
Address: 67 The Avenue, FAREHAM, PO14 1PE
Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises
Registered with Ofsted: 19/12/2025
Registers: EYR, CCR
Registered person: Gregory, Nicholas Ralph
Inspection report: 27 February 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.

Expected standard
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard
Staff support children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, to
understand age-appropriate behavioural expectations. Staff maintain high expectations of all
children, making adaptions to support those who need help to regulate their own emotions.
They provide consistent messages that are followed through, which children respond well to.
This helps all children to develop an understanding of rules, boundaries and behavioural
expectations. Children behave well in the nursery, and staff are positive role models that
children copy, resulting in kindness to one another. In addition, staff support children to think
about how they keep themselves healthy and safe. For instance, staff encourage older
children to think about why they have been asked not to run indoors. Children take time to
think and respond, recalling previously learned knowledge that they might hurt themselves
or friends.
Staff build positive relationships with all children, who confidently seek out staff for comfort,
reassurance or to share their ideas with. Children positively engage in activities and play,
and are encouraged to listen to each other. Staff facilitate taking turns, which helps build
children's self-confidence as they develop their social skills. Leaders and staff promote
children's regular attendance, which positively impacts on the relationships children,
including those who have recently started to attend at the setting, develop with staff.
Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard
Staff understand the importance of building positive relationships with children and their
families. As such, they ensure they obtain information that supports children's own needs to
be met. For instance, staff find out about children's home routines, family structures and how
to meet their basic needs in relation to understanding their emotions and how they seek
comfort. Staff work closely with parents of children, who face various barriers to their
learning, to ensure their routines and emotional needs are well supported through their time
at the nursery. As a result, children develop secure attachments to staff, who value their
wellbeing.
Children's good health is well promoted. Staff work with parents to ensure children's lunch
boxes are healthy and provide advice about oral health and screen time safety. Staff ensure
children have free access to fresh drinking water throughout the day and routines are
flexible, so children receive healthy snacks when they are hungry. Physical exercise is
promoted by daily access to the outdoor area, where children develop their gross motor
skills. Staff support children to learn good hygiene routines, such as teaching children to
wash their hands with soap before mealtimes. Older children learn that doing this means
germs do not go into their tummies. This helps children develop healthy habits.

Needs attention
Achievement Needs attention
Children, including those who face various barriers to their learning, do not always make the
progress they are capable of. This means some children fall further behind their peers and
are not as well prepared for their next stage of learning and eventual transition to school as
they could be. Children's next steps that are planned for them are not always focused on
what they need to learn next as a priority. This means children are not always supported to
continually build on existing skills or learn new things in sequence that are going to have the
greatest impact on their development. For example, children who are identified as having
speech and language delay do not have this as a primary focus to prioritise their learning in
this area. This impact the achievements and overall progress children can make.
Children do have opportunities to develop age-appropriate physical skills. For instance,
younger children thread large cotton wheels onto sticks that are held in place. This is
extended for older children, who concentrate as they try to thread their cotton wheels and
large beads onto flexible pieces of string. This supports children's growing small-muscle
development, dexterity and hand–eye coordination.
Curriculum and teaching Needs attention
Leaders have not been proactive to identify that children, including those with special
educational needs and/or disabilities, who have gaps in their learning, do not receive well
planned or targeted support to reduce these gaps. Staff regularly assess children's learning.
They use developmental trackers to check if they are meeting age-appropriate milestones.
Additionally, they observe and plan activities that are normally based on what children enjoy.
However, children's next steps are not always focused on their identified gaps in their
learning or what is most important for them to learn next. Therefore, staff do not place a
sharp enough focus on what children need to develop next, which impacts on the progress
children can make. Despite this, leaders demonstrate appropriate intentions for the
curriculum, however, they are yet to embed this to ensure it is effective for all children to
make progress in their learning. The curriculum foundations do prioritise children's
language, physical skills, as well as their personal, social and emotional development.
Staff build on children's language skills through activities and interactions. This supports
them to learn new words, use mathematical language in context and develop their growing
conversational skills. They use visual clues to help children understand the language they
are using. For instance, as children explore the sounds different musical instruments make.
Staff use 'stop' and 'go' signs alongside verbal instruction, which children respond to well as
they start and stop creating their sounds. Children are supported to develop early
friendships as staff facilitate and encourage children to play together.
Inclusion Needs attention
Leaders do not have sufficient oversight of the impact of support in place for children with
special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), or those who face other barriers to
their learning. Although typically, the children's various barriers to learning are recognised by

leaders and staff, they are not always acted on swiftly. As a result, children with SEND do
not always get the additional support they need to promote their ongoing learning and
progress. Leaders, and those who have overall responsibility for organising the provision for
children with SEND, do understand the referral process to outside agencies and who they
can contact to offer support and more targeted intervention. However, they do not always
contact them in an appropriate time frame. In addition, staff do not always consider the
information they have available to them when children start at the nursery. This results in
staff not always being aware of existing external professionals involved to support children
when they initially start. These weaknesses delay support for these children, and their
ongoing learning is not proactively promoted.
Those with overall responsibility for SEND do demonstrate an understanding of their roles
and do seek ongoing training to keep their knowledge up to date. Those children who have
involvement with external professionals are, overall, well supported by the staff and leaders,
who implement targeted plans. They offer support to families through the ongoing
assessment process. However, this is inconsistent and other weaknesses in teaching and
assessment impact on the progress some children with barriers to their learning can make.
Additional funding is sought for children, where appropriate, and used and monitored
effectively. This does ensure that it has a positive impact on individual children it is allocated
to.
Leadership and governance Needs attention
Leaders have not identified weaknesses within the nursery. Overall, this impacts the quality
of education all children, including those who face various barriers to their learning, receive.
Weaknesses in teaching and assessment hinders the progress children can make. Staff are
not being supported to precisely plan and target bespoke learning support for individual
children to reduce any gaps in their learning. Additionally, leaders do not ensure all children
who need additional support with their learning, receive the prompt referrals to support them
swiftly enough. Although leaders have plans to implement robust, regular staff supervision
arrangements, this has not yet been actioned. As such, leaders do not identify gaps in staff's
knowledge or areas for ongoing development. This does not raise the quality of the
provision for children and does not support staff to continually develop their personal
effectiveness.
Despite these weaknesses, leaders do show integrity regarding ensuring children's
emotional wellbeing is met. They place a priority on children feeling safe, secure and
developing a positive since of belonging. Leaders have taken action to ensure that the
statutory ratio requirements are always maintained to ensure children's safety. Staff do have
access to various training. For instance, staff have recently completed safer sleep training,
which informs their practice to keep sleeping children safe. Leaders understand the
importance of working together with parents and other professionals, although have not
considered partnership working with other settings children attend, to fully promote a
consistent approach to children's learning.

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
What it's like to be a child at this setting
There are weaknesses and inconsistencies at this nursery, which directly impact on the
children's ability to learn and make the progress they are capable of. This includes children
with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), as well as those who face other
barriers to their learning. For instance, not all children receive timely referrals for specialist
support, when gaps are identified in their learning. Others do not benefit from precise or
well-thought-out planning to support their individual stages of learning. Staff use assessment
processes to check what children have learned and decide what they need to learn next.
However, these are restrictive tick lists that do not consider staff's own knowledge of
children. As a result, staff do not plan bespoke next steps that sharply focus on what is most
important for individual children to learn. For example, children who are still developing their
speech have next steps to recognise numbers. Although leaders and staff work hard to
foster positive relationships with parents, they do not always consider information that is
available to them from previous, or other settings children attend, to inform their teaching or
consideration for children's ongoing learning. Overall, this weakens the learning experience
for all children.
Despite these weaknesses, children demonstrate that they feel safe, secure and enjoy
attending the nursery. Staff work hard to get to know children's individual routines and their
personal preferences as they work alongside parents. This helps staff to meet children's
physical and emotional needs, including those who have recently started to attend the
nursery. This helps all children, including those with SEND, to develop warm attachments to
staff and a positive sense of belonging. There is a secure key-person system in place that
supports children's overall wellbeing. Staff are positive role models to children, this helps

Inspector:
Natalie Moir
About this setting
them to develop early friendships, as well as learning good manners and an understanding
of self-care. Children's attendance is a priority for leaders and is robustly monitored.
Next steps
To meet the requirements of the Early years foundation stage and Childcare Register the
provider must take the following actions by the assigned date:
Action Completion Date
ensure children with special educational needs and/or
disabilities consistently receive swift, and targeted
support to narrow gaps in their learning
27/03/2026
strengthen staff knowledge of children's assessment
and next steps, so teaching is precisely focused and
builds on what children already know and can do
27/03/2026
implement effective supervision arrangements for staff
to enable prompt identification of any gaps in
knowledge and improve their personal effectiveness
27/03/2026
implement effective partnership working for children
who attend more than one setting to promote a
consistent and collaborative approach to children's
learning
27/03/2026
About this inspection
The inspector spoke with leaders, staff, including those who have lead responsibility for
safeguarding and special educational needs, as well as parents.
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.

Unique reference number (URN): 2870935
Address:
67 The Avenue
FAREHAM
PO14 1PE
Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises
Registration date: 19/12/2025
Registered person: Gregory, Nicholas Ralph
Register(s): EYR, CCR
Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 08:00 - 18:00
Local authority: Hampshire
Facts and figures used on inspection
This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection.
This data is from 27 February 2026
Children numbers
Age range of children at the time of inspection
1 to 4
Total number of places
24
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.
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