Brandon Happytimes Daycare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff welcome children with enthusiasm and kindness at this friendly nursery. Children separate from their parents with ease and enter the nursery beaming and full of confidence. They make independent choices from stimulating and inviting resources and activities. Children's communication and language skills are supported effectively. For example, 'World Book Day' is celebrated at the setting, with a broad range of exciting activities planned to celebrate children's enjoyment of books. Older children explore wet and dry porridge. They retell a familiar story of 'The Three Bears' by playing with teddy bears and bowls. Staff encourage children to explore simple mathematical concepts as they scoop up the dried oats and fill the porridge bowls for the bears. Children scoop the porridge up with spoons and gleefully explore what happens when they add it to the water tray.

Staff have high expectations and are good role models. Children's behaviour is good. Staff engage with children to help them build relationships with themselves and each other. For instance, they help babies to develop eye contact through games, such as peekaboo, and help children to understand how to take turns and share. Even the youngest children learn how to take turns by pushing the toy tractor to one another. Staff interact with children well as they join their play.

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

• The manager and staff have high expectations of what they want children to learn. For example, they are supporting children in developing their independence and social skills, as they feel these skills have been impacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Children learn to choose their own peg and hang up their coats as they arrive at the nursery. They independently put on their coats for outdoor play.
• The curriculum has a strong focus on children's personal, social and emotional development. For example, children learn about their feelings and how to manage their emotions through stories about feelings linked to 'emotion dolls'. Staff invite them to share how they are feeling today by choosing the doll linked to the emotion that matches their feeling.
• All staff are very knowledgeable about children. They describe their stage of development, interests, likes and dislikes in detail. They confidently describe the achievements individual children make and what they will do next to continue to make good progress.
• Children feel safe and emotionally secure. Staff closely observe them and respond quickly to their needs. For example, when babies wake from their sleep, they are greeted warmly and are gradually introduced back into their play.
• Staff promote a healthy lifestyle. They advise parents on healthy options for packed lunches. Children build on their physical skills during the day. For example, in the outdoor area, they skilfully negotiate the space as they peddle their bicycles. They climb on large play equipment and run around outdoors enjoying the fresh air. Babies skilfully negotiate grass slopes. Hoops are set out for children to throw bean bags into.
• Children learn about nature and develop their understanding of the world. For example, staff help them to discover bird's nests high up in the trees. Children point to the nests and take other staff member's hands to allow them to share in their exciting discovery.
• Managers are reflective in how they evaluate areas of the nursery to identify changes that can be made. They identify strengths and weaknesses and continually strive to improve the setting and the care that they offer. However, they do not routinely gather the views of parents and children to better inform the self-evaluation process and improve children's learning.
• Staff benefit from regular supervision meetings to help improve their practice. They complete mandatory training, such as paediatric first-aid and safeguarding training. However, they have not focused on professional development to help raise the quality of their practice to an even higher level.
• Parents express how happy their children are to attend, and they comment on the good progress they have made since they started. They comment that staff are 'wonderfully nurturing' and 'go above and beyond' to create exciting activities for their children. Parents are well informed of their children's learning and their day at nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• use self-evaluation more effectively to help develop the quality of provision even further and support better outcomes for children
• provide more professional development opportunities to raise staff understanding even further and raise the overall quality of practice further.