ABC Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Relationships between staff and children are positive. Children have adapted well to any changes made during the COVID-19 pandemic. They continue to separate easily from parents at the entrance door. Children are happy, settled and assured. They clearly enjoy their time at this welcoming and safe nursery. Staff value children. They praise children's every achievement by saying phrases, such as 'good job'. This contributes towards children adopting a high sense of self-worth. Children's good behaviour is demonstrated through their positive actions. For instance, children kindly hand toys to others during play and they actively help with everyday tasks.

Staff focus on nurturing children's emotional well-being, to enable them to become deeply engaged in their play and learning. Children make their own independent choices during play. Babies demonstrate impressive physical skills when toddling along holding a car in one hand and a ball in the other. They replicate actions such as typing on a laptop that they see others performing. Younger children, including those receiving funded early education, display a sheer willingness to persevere during more complex tasks, such as snipping with scissors. They act out the role of a hairdresser during pretend play and show increasing care when gently brushing staff's hair. Older children make marks in many ways, including during play with foam. They recognise numerals up to six and count with numbers in order.

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

• The energetic staff use fun and interactive teaching techniques to motivate children to learn and develop. Older children enjoy taking part in their active mathematics sessions. Children take it in turn to decide the moves that they will perform. They accurately link action words to numerals, such as when jumping three times. Staff smoothly extend children's learning. Later on, they encourage children to move in other ways, such as stretching up tall like a pencil. This supports children to remain active and builds on their good physical skills.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Staff use a variety of methods, including regular parents' evenings, to keep parents informed of their children's progress. They share resources, such as books, with parents, to build on children's early reading skills at home. Parents comment positively about the nursery and staff. They say that 'staff build great relationships with children'.
• Staff are placing a sharper emphasis on supporting children's early language skills. Staff introduce younger children to new descriptive words, such as 'tickly' and 'smooth', during role play. They engage in two-way conversations with older children during play and routines. However, staff working with babies do not consistently intervene to model new words for babies to hear and say, to enrich their vocabulary. Additionally, staff do not reliably encourage babies to remove any comforters before speaking, to aid their early pronunciation skills fully.
• Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. They sensitively intervene to resolve any conflicts during play and gently encourage the use of 'kind hands'. In response to the cost of living crisis, staff are supporting children to display increasing acts of kindness. For instance, children willingly create a food hamper to donate to local elderly residents. They recognise that their kind actions have a positive impact on others. Additional funding is steered well, to further enhance children's turn taking and good listening skills ahead of their move on to school.
• The proactive staff work together with parents and other professionals, to target support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The gradual introduction of additional children during routines, such as snack time, are helping children with SEND to tolerate others and socialise more freely.
• Children learn about the community in which they live. A recent visit to the local harbour has supported younger children to gain a greater awareness of boats and the role of an angler. This is positively inspiring children's imagination during play. Older children enjoy regular trips to the library. They take on the role of the librarian and use different styles of technology, such as self-scanners, safely. Children adore taking their chosen books back to the nursery to read.
• The new manager engages staff in personalised supervision sessions. She values staff's positive contributions through rewarding schemes, such as 'employee of the month'. This contributes towards staff's positive energy and enthusiasm. Some staff, mainly long-serving staff, have access to a broad range of training that equally enhances their knowledge, skills and teaching practice. However, this is currently less well embedded for the newest practitioners.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to build more consistently on babies' developing breadth of vocabulary and early pronunciation skills, to help them to make the best rates of progress in their communication and language development from the onset
• expand the range of professional development for new staff, to help to raise their knowledge, skills and teaching practice to the highest levels.