Ashbourne Day Nurseries at Houghton Regis

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle quickly into the nursery and form meaningful bonds with their key person and the wider staff team. They happily turn to staff for comfort and support and staff respond warmly. The staff team know the children they care for well and communicate about each child's needs with one another successfully. This helps all staff to support children effectively.

Staff promote positive behaviour and children are aware of what staff expect of them. Staff act as strong role models and encourage children to participate in activities together. Children learn to follow positive hygiene routines and complete these independently. Staff remind them of why it is important that they follow this routine and this helps children to understand why the rules are in place.

Staff recognise the importance of progressively building on children's skills. Babies are encouraged to use small forks and spoons to begin to feed themselves at mealtimes. By the time children are in pre-school, they can confidently serve themselves from larger bowls. Staff supervise children well as they eat, speaking to them about their experiences of meals at home, promoting relevant discussion and helping children to value mealtimes together.

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

• Leaders have good oversight at the nursery. They are able to accurately identify areas for improvement and have worked hard since the nursery opened to embed their vision and ethos. Staff feel well supported in their roles and well-being is a real focus for leaders, who value the staff team. For instance, staff have access to 'tea and talk' sessions, where they can discuss anything that may affect their work. Staff participate in a range of training and they recognise the benefit this has to their practice.
• Staff provide learning opportunities that focus on children's individual next steps and stages of development. The curriculum is planned and sequenced well to build on children's existing skills. Key persons track children's progress and this information is shared with the wider staff team. This helps staff to differentiate their interactions with children so that all children successfully gain new knowledge relevant to them.
• Overall, parents are very pleased with the care their children receive and the progress they are making. They comment on the strong support they receive in relation to challenging milestones, such as toilet training and helping their children to move away from using dummies. They recognise the benefits that consistent routines and expectations between the nursery and home have on their children's development.
• Babies enjoy familiar songs and rhymes. They listen intently as staff read them stories and sing the associated rhymes. They clap their hands and move their bodies, following the instructions staff sing and read to them. Staff praise them as they do this, and this helps to keep them motivated to continue to join in.
• Language and communication is highly valued at the nursery. Staff encourage babies to babble back to them as they begin to learn how to hold conversations. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities learn to communicate effectively with staff, using visual cues. Staff follow children's leads, building on their understanding of what they are doing. Pre-school children confidently share their knowledge with staff and staff skilfully link this to children's other learning. For instance, staff speak about the story they recently read and invite children to recall what happens in the story. Children respond by confidently re-telling the familiar parts of the story to staff.
• On the whole, staff engage children in their learning well. For instance, they create games for children to play, where they can run around and develop their larger muscles. However, the pre-school outdoor learning environment is in the early stages of development and opportunities for children to learn and engage are not as successfully organised or arranged yet. This leads to children's learning sometimes being interrupted by others and levels of concentration are not as high as they are indoors.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• continue to develop the outdoor learning environment, particularly for pre-school children, to help staff deliver a highly effective and well organised curriculum and strengthen children's engagement and learning outdoors.