Banana Moon Sunderland

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled. They are well cared for by passionate staff who know them well. Children from diverse family backgrounds attend and staff ensure they provide a very welcoming and inclusive setting. All staff are very attentive to children's needs and know their individual routines. For example, staff in the baby room know when children are showing signs, they are ready for a sleep.

Children's emotional needs are also well met. For example, when babies become unsettled in the dining room, they are immediately taken back to their own room for lunch. Children's physical needs are well supported and parents explain how staff have helped their children with weaning, potty and toilet training routines. Parents also comment that the setting has a 'family' feel.

All children benefit from an ambitious curriculum and they are making good progress in all areas of learning. Staff ensure that children are busy and engaged, as a result, children are also well behaved. Good procedures are in place to ensure that children who may need additional support are assessed at the earliest opportunity. Staff work with other professionals and agencies to ensure that children who need it, receive specific help, such as speech and language support.

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

• Children benefit from healthy and nutritious meals and snacks prepared daily by the chef. The chef takes time to get to know and interact with the children and is very much a part of the staff team.
• Staff engage babies and children in lots of discussions, singing, rhyme and story time sessions to promote their language and communication. They also skilfully link songs to stories, such as singing about and reading about 'little bunnies'.
• Staff encourage and support children to be independent, such as putting on their own outdoor shoes, feeding themselves and serving their own lunch where possible. This also helps promote children's confidence and school readiness.
• Children have a positive attitude to learning. They readily engage in activities and spend a lot of time concentrating on some tasks, such as bathing dolls and pouring water into different trays. Occasionally, some children's learning is interrupted, to change their nappies at the pre-allocated time for that. However, staff show courtesy and respect by asking the children first could they change their nappy.
• Staff carefully consider the environment and resources across the setting to ensure they build on children's skills. For example, they ensure furniture is situated in a way that helps babies to become more mobile. They also provide different types of cups, cutlery and seating for babies, toddlers and older children, helping them to progress to the next stage of their development.
• However, although there are good resources indoors to promote babies and younger children's large physical development, there are limited resources available outdoors to build on older children's large physical skills.
• Staff provide different opportunities to promote children's hand and eye coordination and early literacy skills. For example, babies make marks with chunky crayons, toddlers make water marks with sponges on the fence outside and older children draw with chalks, pencils and paint.
• Children's development is continuously assessed and learning programmes also include what skills staff are developing with individual children. This ensures that any gaps in a child's development are quickly addressed.
• Partnership with parents is good. Parents are kept well informed of their child's development and progress and of how they can support learning at home. Parents are also invited into the setting for different events, such as a Mother's Day breakfast.
• Staff ensure children have various opportunities to learn about the world around them, as well as the wider world. For example, when playing outside they hear emergency vehicles. This leads to different activities, such as children pretending to be emergency workers in the role play area. Children also participate in age appropriate activities that help them understand the celebration of Ramadan.
• There are rigorous recruitment and induction procedures in place to ensure staff are suitable, and are well supported for their roles. The staff team work really well together and are supported by strong and ambitious leaders.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider the daily routine and care practices, for example, so that they do not interrupt or interfere with children's concentration and learning
• consider providing some more challenging equipment outdoors, to promote and extend older children's large physical skills.