Bloom Day Nursery & Pre School LTD

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a secure and nurturing space where children flourish and grow. Children build affectionate and caring bonds with staff, who are responsive to their needs. Staff have a fluid approach to the day so that they can focus on children's needs first. Children feel happy, safe and ready to learn.

Children develop a true love for books from an early age. Across the nursery, children willingly bring their favourite books to staff to share with them. Staff encourage children to bring books from home to share at group time with their friends. Staff skilfully extend children's vocabulary as they join in with the story. Staff offer plenty of praise for children's efforts and achievements. This helps to motivate children to do their best.

Staff are good role models and demonstrate high expectations for children's behaviour. Staff promote rules and boundaries. They work together to encourage children to share, take turns and play cooperatively. Staff gently remind children to make 'good choices' in their decision making. Children develop lasting relationships with others and readily invite their friends into their play, such as when they explore foam or design the solar system.

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

• The curriculum is ambitious. Staff make adaptations to personalise learning for children. Staff use creative activities to extend children's learning through their interests. For example, children enjoy exploring the mud and making marks in the foam as they develop muscles for early writing skills and the next stage of their education.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are supported well. The knowledgeable staff work closely with parents and other professionals to establish targeted interventions to support each child. Staff provide an inclusive environment where they value all children and understand their individual needs.
• Leaders use additional funding effectively, ensuring that children attending are offered the full learning experiences on offer. This means children are making good progress in their learning, and support is also offered for the family.
• Staff monitor children's development well. They make good use of assessment to plan children's future learning. Staff ensure that their implementation of the curriculum promotes children's love of learning as activities are exciting and engaging. However, at times, staff direct children's learning too much during activities. For instance, during painting activities, staff do not allow children to express themselves as they tell them what to do. Therefore, this limits the choices that children make for themselves.
• Children show positive attitudes towards learning. They display high levels of concentration in tasks, politeness and kindness towards their friends. However, sometimes, staff's organisation of routines, particularly around lunchtime, causes some children to wait for prolonged periods and become unsettled, while others are unsure of what is expected of them.
• Staff help children to develop a broad understanding of mathematical concepts. They assist children to understand individual numbers and offer activities such as building towers to count how high they reach, as well as finding shapes and counting how many sides they have. Staff introduce vocabulary such as 'sphere' and 'hexagon' as children play. This teaching supports children's mathematical development.
• Physical opportunities promote exploration and the development of children's gross motor skills. For instance, children enjoy balancing on the balance beam, running and chasing in the garden. Staff support children to develop their fine motor skills as they mark-make with foam and paint and complete puzzles. This builds the strength in their hand muscles to support early writing skills.
• Parents speak positively about the nursery. They express how the nursery shares children's development milestones with them regularly. Parents say how the nursery offers a variety of ways to keep in touch with their children's progress and shares ideas to support learning at home.
• Leaders foster a positive and supportive culture. They offer staff continuous development through high-quality coaching and training. Leaders provide effective supervision sessions, which ensure a clear understanding of staff's strengths. They use regular reviews to help to enhance staff's skills and aspirations. Staff feel highly supported and valued, particularly while gaining their qualifications.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to provide children with further opportunities to make independent choices during activities
• review the organisation of the daily routine, particularly lunchtime, to reduce waiting times for children and ensure that they remain consistently engaged in learning.