Bramblewood Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy in this friendly, welcoming nursery. They safely move around the rooms and outside, choosing what they want to play with from a wide range of toys and resources. Babies giggle and smile as they make noises, banging toys together. Staff encourage them to repeat the actions to popular nursery rhymes and shake musical instruments. Toddlers snuggle close to staff and listen to a story about parts of their body. Staff encourage them to find their body parts and toddlers know they have two eyes and one nose.

Children have a positive attitude to their learning. Pre-school children are eager to play outside. They thoroughly enjoy playing with bubbles. Staff support children to blow bubbles and compare the sizes as the bubbles glide up into the sky. Children learn to squeeze spray bottles and use their finger and thumb. They scream with delight as the water spurts out and hits the wall. This helps to strengthen the small muscles in their hands which they will eventually need in order to use zips and hold a crayon to draw.

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

• The manager has taken action to improve the quality of education since the last inspection. She now implements a curriculum covering all areas of learning and considers children's interests. She also checks staff's performance to ensure that they understand how to promote children's learning and development.
• Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and children who speak English as an additional language well. They work with other professionals such as speech and language therapists. They use visual aids to support children to communicate, where problems are identified.
• Overall, staff promote children's speaking skills. They give babies a running commentary of what they are doing to help them to understand words. Staff speak clearly and begin to hold conversations with toddlers. For pre-school children, staff generally ask thoughtful questions to extend their learning. However, some staff do not give children enough time to respond to questions. This means children do not always have time to develop their speaking and express their own ideas as well as they could.
• Staff interact with children and provide challenging activities. For example, they create a dinosaur world for toddlers. The toddlers make dinosaur footprints in the sand and stomp around the room, pretending to be dinosaurs. This helps to promote their physical development and imagination. However, at times, for pre-school children, the implementation of group activities is not successful. The activities are lengthy and do not consider the children's individual needs. As a result, some children lose focus and become disinterested.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Parents appreciate the guidance the manager and her staff team offer. Parents say that communication is one of the main strengths of the nursery. Staff inform parents about their child's learning and what they are doing, which helps parents to encourage their child's learning at home.
• Staff find out about the experiences children have at home. They create opportunities to broaden their knowledge. For example, they take children to the local market to purchase fruit and vegetables. They also visit the library to encourage children to choose books and promote their love of stories.
• Staff encourage good behaviour. Children learn to take turns and to share. For example, pre-school children play with a toy shop. They take turns to be the shopkeepers. They count out the money together and decide how much they need. They help each other to put the food in the basket and say, 'thank you for shopping'.
• Staff support children's self-help skills. For instance, they encourage younger children to use their cutlery and older children to self-serve their lunches. Children learn about the importance of good personal hygiene. They wash their hands after coming in from the outside area and before eating.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• give children more time to consider their responses to questions to help them develop their speaking skills and express their own ideas more effectively
• review the implementation of group times in the pre-school room to maximise the learning opportunities for every child.