Bambinos Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Managers do not allow parents to enter the premises currently due to COVID-19 restrictions, but regardless of this, children leave their parents confidently at the front door. Children enter the nursery happily and are eager to greet staff and friends, which shows that they feel safe and secure. They demonstrate good behaviour, for example when they listen to staff and follow instructions. Children are friendly and play well alongside and with each other. Pre-school children are kind and learn to share the toys and resources. For example, they offer the pencils they have finished using to their friends.

Staff plan a broad and varied curriculum to help children develop the skills and knowledge needed for later learning, including school. Babies and toddlers watch and listen with interest when staff sing to them and try to copy the actions, developing their communication skills and rhythm. Staff support pre-school children to look carefully at pictures of animals, discuss the features and try to draw them. The children comment enthusiastically on colours and sizes and count the number of legs and ears the animals have as they try to copy the picture with care. They proudly show staff and visitors their work when they have finished.

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

• Managers and staff provide challenging learning experiences for children and flexibly adapt their plans to follow children's emerging interests. For example, staff initially plan for pre-school children to learn about dinosaurs and to build imaginative homes for them, to encourage them to be creative, share their ideas and solve problems. The children really enjoyed this activity and in their excitement, extend their conversations with staff to learn more about jungle animals and their diets too. Staff model language effectively and teach them a range of new words, such as pterodactyl, herbivore, hibernate and fungus.
• Staff understand how children learn and provide an attractive and stimulating environment for children to explore and investigate. Two-year-olds choose to look at books independently as they rest, turning the pages and chatting to themselves about the pictures, developing an early love of books. Babies and toddlers use brushes and their fingers to paint and show interest in the marks they make, which supports their literacy development. Pre-school children are curious, concentrate well and show determination, for example as they to try to balance items to build imaginative homes for the toy dinosaurs to live in.
• Staff know the children well and are sensitive and responsive to their care needs overall. At times, staff working with the babies and toddlers spend too much time tending to routine tasks, such as tidying and cleaning, rather than helping to settle and soothe new children, to give them as much emotional support and reassurance as possible.
• Partnerships with parents are effective. Staff share detailed information with parents about children's experiences and what skills their children are working towards. Parents are highly complimentary about the nursery and comment that they appreciate staff's support and advice about how to extend their children's learning at home.
• Children communicate confidently. Babies babble happily and staff respond skilfully to continue the interaction. Two-year-old children listen as staff read well-known stories and they join in with the repeated words and phrases. Staff use effective approaches to develop pre-school children's thinking and language skills. These older children begin to use sentences and more complex vocabulary to express their thoughts and ideas.
• The managers and staff work together well. Managers encourage staff to identify areas of interest and develop their knowledge and skills, for example by completing additional courses. Training on children's brain development has motivated staff to review the learning environment and they have created areas of contrasting colours to capture the babies' attention. Staff are currently learning to use signing to support all children's communication. However, managers do not routinely monitor staff's practice and provide targeted coaching for their development as effectively as they could, to help all staff to meet children's learning needs consistently well.
• Staff form good links with other settings attended by children. This helps them to get to know children quickly and to provide consistency for children's care and learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop monitoring, support and coaching for staff, with particular regard to new and less experienced staff, to help them meet children's individual learning needs more consistently
• review staff deployment for those who work with babies and toddlers, to support the younger children's emotional well-being more effectively when they settle in.