Best Friends Day Nursery Chester Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children relish the time they spend in this safe and friendly nursery. They are energetic and motivated learners. To illustrate, quickly after arriving, children immediately explore toys and activities with enthusiasm and excitement. Staff prepare an engaging environment to support children's all-round learning. Children clearly enjoy this fun and stimulating nursery, giggling and laughing as they play. Staff help children to enjoy reading and literacy. They successfully use humour and energy to deliver inspiring story sessions. Children are encouraged to join in familiar and repetitive parts of stories. Staff model language, pause and discuss illustrations, and children anticipate what will happen next. Children show good listening skills and concentration when reading. Furthermore, children benefit from a well-stocked library. They are encouraged to choose and borrow books. This helps to support continued learning at home.

Staff encourage children to complete tasks for themselves. They wait for children to have a go and offer plenty of encouragement to foster children's resilience. For instance, children are encouraged to wash their plates in warm soapy water after eating. Children relish this additional responsibility and stand tall when they have completed this independent task. Children are self-assured, confident and independent. Children's health is well promoted. They enjoy a nutritious menu and benefit from a freshly cooked, hot meal each day. Kitchen staff lead activities with children, such as baking. This helps children to appreciate where their food comes from and contributes to their positive attitude to healthy eating. Recipes are sent home to encourage parents to prepare balanced and economical meals for their children at home. Furthermore, mealtimes are a wonderfully social experience within the nursery. Children sit together and talk about their day, extending their social skills and continuing to foster their love of mealtimes and healthy food.

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

• The leaders and managers of the nursery have worked with determination over recent months to improve standards. Since the last inspection, they have benefited from support and guidance from outside agencies, such as local authority quality advisers. This has helped to move the nursery forward, and the quality of service offered is now consistently good.
• Leaders implement a rigorous programme of professional development for staff. Training, coupled with coaching and mentoring, helps to build staff's confidence and raise the quality of teaching.
• Staff plan a broad and balanced curriculum, and children's all-round learning is well promoted. Staff include a mix of planned activities and spontaneous play in the daily timetable. Furthermore, specialist teachers, such as music and sports coaches, visit the nursery to deliver group sessions each week. This extra- curricular programme of teaching helps to enrich children's learning experiences.
• Staff observe children continually and track their progress. They know what children can do and understand gaps in their learning. However, sometimes, staff identify next steps that are too challenging and do not build on what children already know. This means that, occasionally, teaching and learning are not sequenced effectively on a secure foundation of prior skills and knowledge.
• Staff's well-being is nurtured. Designated 'well-being officers' act as champions for staff. They offer support to help ensure that staff remain happy and fulfilled in their roles. This creates a culture where all staff feel valued and, in turn, contributes to their dedication to the children they care for.
• Senior leaders' vision for this nursery is to be a home-from-home, nurturing space where children and wider family members can flourish. The staff and leaders are accomplishing this vision through a truly inclusive approach. For instance, parents benefit from a dedicated family room where they are able to access computers and complementary tea and coffee. This is an inclusive and welcoming nursery, where everyone's needs are met.
• Staff are good role models for children. They are polite and respectful in their interactions. Staff regularly remind children the importance of good manners, such as encouraging them to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Children are polite, courteous and helpful.
• Staff help new children to settle into the nursery when they first start attending. However, systems to share information between staff when children move through the nursery are not always effective. Children's learning is sometimes interrupted as their transition between rooms is not always managed effectively.
• Strong partnerships with parents are a notable strength of this setting. Parents are highly complimentary. A parent comments, 'As a parent, I couldn't ask for a more enriching and caring environment for my child. The nursery feels like and extension of our family, providing a setting where my child is truly thriving.'

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure that staff identify age-appropriate next steps to support children's sequenced learning, building on what they already know and can do
• develop systems to enable staff to share their expert knowledge about children when they move from one room to another to enable the new key worker to support learning without interruption.