Bluebells Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff help children to flourish at this setting. Children arrive to warm greetings and smiles from staff. Children quickly separate from their parents and carers and engage with activities that staff provide. Children show they have strong bonds with staff. They seek out familiar adults and peers. This helps children to feel safe and secure.

Leaders and staff plan and design a curriculum which helps children to make progress in all areas of learning. They create a community atmosphere for families through a range of social events. This helps children to learn about their world and their diverse local community. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive good support. Staff work with parents and relevant agencies to ensure the right support is available for children. This helps all children to progress in their learning.

Overall, children behave well. They learn the skills they need to show respect to each other. For example, during story times, pre-school children and toddlers listen well, respond to questions and ask simple questions. Staff help children to make independent choices about what they would like to do and which activities they would like to participate in. Children show their excitement as they approach their learning. They enjoy their time at the setting and demonstrate their growing confidence.

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

• Staff thoughtfully consider how to support children's communication and language skills. The youngest children handle small board books. Some respond with single words when they are interacting with nurturing staff. Other children learn about book characters. Staff introduce story props and objects to some literacy activities. This encourages children to retell stories. Older children independently choose to sit together and share books. All children develop a love of literacy.
• Children have ample opportunities to develop their small and large muscles. Staff provide water play, construction and parachute games to improve children's physical skills. However, some staff do not stretch children's thinking further during other activities. For example, during planned activities, some staff are not clear about how to further support children to reach their next steps in learning. This means that children do not benefit from consistent experiences to build on what they already know and can do.
• Staff promote children's early mathematical development well. For example, staff teach children about 'heavy' and 'light' as they explore with blocks in scales in the pre-school room. In other rooms, children join in counting songs and explore volume through water play. This helps children to develop a good understanding of early mathematical concepts.
• Children's behaviour is generally good. Children are helpful and follow the routines well. They share books with each other and develop good friendships. However, on occasion, when some children display unwanted behaviour, staff do not consistently help children to understand their behaviour or how they can improve it. This does not help children to consistently learn the impact their behaviour can have on their peers' emotional health.
• Leaders value staff and support their well-being with a range of well-being incentives. However, they do not fully consider ways to help staff to enhance their teaching skills and practice to a consistently high level. For example, leaders do not use the current arrangements for staff supervision sessions fully to identify strengths and areas of development.
• Staff create an environment that enables babies and young children to use all their senses. For instance, the youngest children smell, squash, taste and squeeze baked beans with their fingers as they explore it. This benefits children's sensory exploration and expression.
• Parents praise staff highly for the care their children receive and how well they know their children. Parents like the information they receive about their children's developmental progress. They receive advice from staff to support their children's learning at home. Children continue to make good progress in their learning.
• Parents receive encouragement from staff to continue to develop children's love of reading at home. A recent development at the setting is the lending library, where parents access books to share with their children at home. Staff build effective partnerships with parents.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the planning of activities and experiences so there is a sharper focus on children's individual next steps in learning
• support staff to be consistent in how they support children to learn why some behaviour is not acceptable, and how it has an impact on others
• promote staff's skills and knowledge further by establishing effective coaching, training and mentoring to support children with consistently high levels of education.