Best Friends Day Nurseries Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive eager and ready to learn. Staff welcome children and parents warmly at the door. They exchange information with parents to make sure they are aware of any changes and to support the children's care and learning.

The manager and staff work with parents and others to make sure they plan the curriculum to meet children's needs. They quickly identify when children may need support to learn and develop. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress.

Babies love exploring the different toys and resources. They hold out toy animals and copy words and sounds as staff tell them the name of the animal and the sound it makes. Toddlers develop their physical skills outdoors. They throw and catch balls and go confidently up the steps of the climbing frame. Pre-school children seek out the letters in their name. They hold their name card and search round the room to find the correct picture card with the matching letters.

Staff help older children with moving on to school. They arrange visits to schools or invite teachers into the setting to meet the children before they move on. They help children's self-care skills by including specific activities such as changing clothes to do physical activities. Children gain good skills that prepare them well for their future learning.

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

• Staff focus on communication and personal development to help children interact with others. They make sure that they find out words in home languages and use signs, gestures and facial expressions to help children understand and talk with others. They use photos showing different emotions to help children explain how they are feeling. Children gain confidence talking and expressing their needs.
• Staff are embedding the changes to the curriculum and planning. Key persons know children well. They talk confidently about what children know and can do and what they need to learn next. However, this information is not shared effectively with other staff to make sure that planned activities and learning support children as well as they could.
• Children can make choices about what they want to do. In the baby room, children enjoy exploring pasta shapes. They use different tools to scoop the pasta up and put it into containers. Staff clap hands and praise children's efforts. Toddlers enjoy completing puzzles with staff. They listen well and turn pieces around to fit them into the correct places. They smile when staff tell them they have done well. Older children talk about colours, shapes and size as they use hammers and pins to attach shapes to cork boards. Children expand on ideas and recall previous learning as they talk about the shapes looking like the moon that comes out at night-time.
• Staff help children to work out solutions and offer suggestions for things they can do to help. For example, at tidy-up time, staff offer stickers as a reward for helping put the toys away. Children proudly show them off to others. However, when there are changes in the routine, staff are often busy with other tasks, such as putting food into containers for children to serve themselves or cleaning up after mealtimes. Younger children go off to play but struggle to engage well in activities and staff miss when there are disagreements.
• Good use of the local community and visitors to the nursery helps children learn about themselves and the wider world. Children visit the local library to choose books that they can read in the nursery with friends and staff. They go on walks to the nearby park and notice the changes that happen with the different seasons. Staff encourage visits from parents and others as well. Recently, the local vicar came to play his guitar and sing songs with the children. Parents brought in pets from home to talk about with the children and other parents come in to read stories in home languages.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• make sure staff share planning for what children need to learn next better, to ensure children are continually able to build on what they know and can do
• improve the way that staff organise routine changes during the day to make sure that younger children know what is happening and still receive the support they need to engage well in activities.