Abacus Nursery Brixton

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide a warm and welcoming environment and spend a lot of time getting to know the children and building secure relationships. As a result, children are happy and settled and confidently explore the environment. For example, babies enjoy playing games with staff, such as peekaboo, with sensory scarfs and laugh and giggle with each other. Older children enjoy sharing songs with each other they have learned at home. Staff are attentive to babies needs and know them well. They support them well during play and effectively meet their needs. For example, children delight in climbing up the ladder and down the slide. Staff support them to do so, giving gentle reminders about safety.

Staff are well deployed and set up a wide range of activities to support and extend children's learning. For example, children delight in exploring paint and making marks, mixing them together to make different colours. Older children enjoy playing in the mud kitchen, mixing mud, leaves and flowers together to make cakes. Staff support children's behaviour effectively. They are good role models for positive behaviour and give lots of gentle reminders about how to be kind and respectful to each other. As a result, children happily share toys and take turns and are caring towards one another.

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

• The manager and staff have a good understanding of how children learn and their curriculum. They effectively plan activities to support and extend children's learning to further their development. For example, children delight in using scissors to cut out pictures, following their lead staff encourage them to turn them in to puppets and support them in making their own puppet show.
• The manager and staff build effective relationships with parents. They keep them up to date with what their children are doing each day and what they are learning. Parents also attend regular events, such as graduations, reading sessions and art exhibitions, and feel involved in the nursery and their children's learning.
• The manager is a good role model for her staff and regularly works alongside them. She mentors and supports them effectively to develop their practice further.
• The management team support staff effectively, who enjoy and feel valued in their role. Staff well-being is important to them and they arrange different activities, such as massages, meals and incentives to look after their team. Staff attend regular supervision meetings and reviews to discuss their professional development. Managers also complete peer observations on staff to reflect on their practice.
• Staff attend regular training to continue to develop their practice and improve the outcomes for children. For instance, following recent training on outdoor play, staff are introducing more opportunities for children to develop their imaginations and creativity outdoors and they want to continue developing in this area.
• The management team and staff are reflective of their practice and are constantly looking at what is going well and what needs to be improved to benefit the children and their families. For example, they have noticed that a lot of children walk or use scooters to come to nursery. To ensure they have a good understanding of road safety, staff have started taking children out in small groups to teach them this.
• Staff support children's physical well-being effectively. Children enjoy regular walks in the local community as well as weekly sports sessions and music sessions.
• Overall, children learn to become independent in the nursery. For instance, young children learn to feed themselves and older children manage their own self-care routines. However, the environment does not always allow children to make choices in their play and access resources independently.
• Staff interact well with children and engage in conversations that support and extend their learning. For example, staff talk to babies about what they can see and are doing and are positive role models for language. With older children, staff ask questions and introduce new words to extend their vocabulary. However at times, they do not always give children enough time to think and respond.
• Staff know the children well, what they can do and what they want them to do next. They plan activities to support children's learning and monitor and assess their development effectively. This enables staff to quickly address any gaps in children's development. As a result, all children make good progress.
• Children are well behaved. When needed, staff support children to manage any conflicts themselves and understand how to regulate their feelings.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review how resources are organised to help children make more independent choices in their play
• build on the good teaching practice in place and ensure all staff give children enough time to think and formulate ideas for themselves.