Bewbush Community Nursery CIC

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle quickly and feel secure in this warm, friendly and caring environment. Children show that they enjoy their time at nursery. For example, they smile, giggle and talk excitedly with staff and other children about their day. Children separate confidently from parents and carers. They form strong bonds with staff, and babies snuggle into staff for story time.

Children show positive attitudes to their learning and make good progress. Staff skilfully organise the environment to promote children's natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. Children benefit from a good range of experiences, which prepare them well for their future success. For example, babies practise climbing steps to go down slides and have a go at feeding themselves with spoons. Older children have their physical skills promoted through playing outside on obstacle courses, and riding scooters around a racetrack.

Staff are positive role models and reinforce their expectations of children's behaviour very well. They use a fair and gentle approach. For example, staff talk to children about how to solve disagreements and explain about emotions. As a result, children are well behaved and follow the nursery routine well. Staff recognise children's efforts and offer lots of praise when they succeed. Children respond to this positive reinforcement well. This helps to boost children's confidence and self-esteem.

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

• Staff support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language is a strength of the nursery. Staff quickly identify children who need additional support. They work effectively with parents and other professionals to put targeted strategies in place, tailored to children's needs and preferences. Staff learn keywords in children's home language as they play games and sing songs together. As a result, children feel included and make good progress in their learning and development.
• Partnership with parents is effective. Staff make good use of settling-in arrangements to build strong relationships with families and children. Parents say that they appreciate the daily verbal feedback, weekly photographs and the activities given to them to support children's learning at home.
• Children develop good communication and language skills. Staff engage in conversation with children as they play, introducing new words to increase their vocabulary. For example, staff introduce the words 'kneading,' 'yeast' and 'sticky' as children excitedly knead dough to make bread. Occasionally, some staff do not ask well thought-out questions to fully extend older children's thinking and learning skills as they play. This means not all learning opportunities for older children are of a consistently high quality.
• Children develop a good understanding of mathematical concepts. For example, as they enjoy playing with sand, filling and emptying dumper trucks, staff use language such as 'full' and 'empty'. In addition, children are encouraged to count during activities when they play with cars and trains, in both English and Spanish. This supports children's understanding of mathematics and other languages well.
• The management team evaluates the provision effectively. They carry out supervision sessions with staff and check in on their well-being in regular team meetings. Staff are supported to use resources, such as online training, to support their ongoing professional development. Effective systems are in place to recruit and induct new members of staff.
• Most children begin to develop good levels of independence. For example, they find their own shoes and wash their own hands. However, occasionally, some staff do things for children which they could do themselves. For instance, staff do not consistently encourage all children to have a go at putting their own coats on, wiping their own noses or pouring their own drinks.
• Children have good opportunities to visit places of interest in the local community and learn about different cultures, religions and beliefs. For example, children thoroughly enjoy buying ingredients at local shops to use for cooking a meal for Eid. Staff regularly discuss people's similarities and differences while out on trips and through stories. Staff work hard to break down stereotypes that children may have. Children share celebrations with local residents at a care home and celebrate each other's birthdays. Children have exciting opportunities to dress up for World Book Day and listen to a local children's author reading stories.
• Staff support older children's coordination and fine motor skills well. For instance, they enjoy building dinosaurs from boxes and making prints with vegetables. Younger children enjoy moving to music and learn how to jump, shake and stretch.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• Strengthen staff training so all staff are able to extend older children's learning and thinking skills through well-focused questions
• develop staff's understanding of how to promote children's independence consistently.