Bella Bambini Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at the nursery happy and eager to greet staff and their friends. Children demonstrate their developing independence as they hang up their coats. They quickly settle and engage with different activities in the room. Staff are attentive to children's individual needs and support them to make choices about their learning and play. They actively engage with children and respond with enthusiasm when joining in with role-play games. They encourage children's communication skills by initiating conversations and asking questions. This helps children to consider what they are doing and begin to solve problems. For example, when playing outside, children recognise that they need a spade to dig in the sand. Staff guide them to where the tools are kept and say the word 'spade', which children repeat. This helps to reinforce children's early language development.

Children benefit from being cared for by staff who know them well. Staff use their knowledge and ongoing assessments to provide meaningful activities that carefully build on children's prior learning and skills. This helps all children to make good progress. Staff foster positive relationships with children and are skilled in supporting children's emotional well-being. Children happily play alongside their friends, learning how to share and take turns with resources. Staff gently remind children about appropriate behaviour, such as not running indoors. This supports children's understanding of how to keep themselves safe.

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

• The consistent staff team has helped to embed the key person system and staff have a secure understanding of how to support children's individual needs. Staff have received ongoing support and accessed a wide range of additional training and professional development. This has helped staff to focus on their effective engagement with children and improve their teaching skills to support children's learning.
• Staff establish positive relationships with parents. They gather detailed information from parents when children first start. This helps them to identify clear starting points for learning and any additional support that children may need to help them make progress. Parents speak highly of the nursery and the friendly staff. They value the regular updates they receive and recognise the skills children have developed since starting. However, not all parents feel they receive clear information about how they can further support children's learning at home.
• Staff have established effective systems to support children with daily routines. For example, staff use signs and pictures to help some children to feel more settled when transitioning from one activity to another. Children demonstrate that they feel calm and quickly re-engage as they move from outdoor to indoor activities.
• Staff promote children's independence skills effectively. They model how to use cutlery at mealtimes. Younger children learn how to use a spoon while older children begin to handle knives and forks to cut up their own food. Staff focus on key skills to help children take care of their own needs and to prepare them well for their transition to school. For example, children help themselves to drinks when they feel thirsty and put on their coats when going outside.
• Overall, staff support children well during activities to encourage their curiosity and enable them to make connections in their learning. However, staff do not always react quickly when they observe a child is unable to move their learning forward without assistance. This occasionally leads to children disengaging from activities.
• Children's awareness of the local community is fostered through a variety of stimulating activities. Visits to the nursery by the police and fire brigade contribute to increasing children's understanding of people who help us. Regular trips to the local library help to further promote children's interest in books and storytelling.
• Staff engage in playful interactions with children and encourage them to use and develop their physical skills. Children show delight as they run and climb outside. They confidently use wheeled toys. Children express amazement as they dig down into the soil and find earthworms. Staff extend children's vocabulary by introducing and repeating words, such as 'wriggle' to describe the worm's movements. Children giggle and say 'tickle' as the worm moves in their hand.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to further develop their teaching practice so children actively engage as much as possible in activities
• develop further partnership working with parents to ensure all parents feel confident in knowing how to support children's learning at home.