Bright Bubbles

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time in this bright, welcoming nursery. They make good progress from their starting points, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff find out about children's home lives and what parents hope children will achieve from being at nursery. They use this information to help children settle quickly and build strong bonds with their key person. Staff are aware of children's need for emotional support and are always ready to comfort them. Children are confident around visitors. They are keen to show their toys and talk about their favourite activities.

Overall, children develop their independence through play and daily routines. Older children have good personal hygiene routines, including knowing why they must brush their teeth. They help to tidy away their toys and clear their plates after lunch. These embedded routines prepare children well for the eventual move to school. The youngest children use age-appropriate cutlery and are starting to feed themselves.

Children behave well. They begin to understand their emotions and the impact their behaviour has on others. Children learn to be kind, share and take turns. As a result, they develop good social skills and build secure friendships. Children play in the outdoor area, where they practise their physical skills. In the baby room, children have resources at different levels, so they learn to crawl, pull themselves up and cruise.

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

• Children's interests are reflected in the resources provided, which means they are eager to explore and investigate. Staff use information from parents, children's experiences at home, and their assessments of children's next steps to design an ambitious curriculum that builds on what children already know and can do. Overall, staff implement the curriculum effectively and provide children with learning experiences that promote good progress. However, on occasion, activities do not fully consider the age and stage of development of children. For example, some children are not ready for 'circle time', so they lose interest and start to fidget.
• Communication and language underpins the educational programme. Staff sing familiar nursery rhymes to the youngest children and encourage them to babble. Throughout the nursery, staff chat to children during their play. Staff support children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) well. They use visual timetables to help children understand daily routines. They use key words from home to help them convey their wants and needs. Training in supporting children who speak EAL has helped staff to recognise that these children need more time to process language.
• Staff promote children's love of books and reading. Children listen to stories every day. Staff model rhythms in language and repetitive phrases children can join in with. Toddler-room staff involve children in telling stories. They pause so that children can share their knowledge or think about might happen next. Staff recognise young children cannot sit and maintain their attention for long, so they keep activities short and interesting.
• The nursery provides strong support for children with SEND to ensure these children catch up. Leaders are quick to seek advice from external agencies if necessary. Parents say there is consistent two-way communication and staff build on what they are doing at home. All parents receive termly reports about their children's progress and feel they are kept informed at all times.
• Children show their creativity when they use toy vehicles to make patterns in paint. Staff promote early mathematics when they talk about motion and how children's toys roll backwards and forwards. Staff encourage children to think about whether aeroplanes go faster than cars. Pre-school children enjoy role play and invite each other to join in imaginative play based on their favourite television characters.
• Children learn about their community and make links to family. They talk about visiting the doctor. They visit local places of interests, such as the sea life centre and a farm, and travel to the theatre by bus. Children visit the local park, and on the way they learn to cross roads safely using pedestrian crossings. Staff ask parents to continue this at home. In general, staff promote children's health and hygiene well. Children benefit from a nutritious and varied menu of freshly cooked meals. However, staff working with the youngest children do not consistently implement good hygiene routines from the start of children's care.
• Leaders are passionate and determined to continually improve the setting. They review their practice and seek the views of parents. However, their evaluation is not yet robust enough to identify all areas for improvement. As a result, staff do not have a programme of professional development that is specific to their individual training needs. This means they are not fully supported to raise the quality of education to the highest level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the evaluation of practice and programme of professional development for staff, so that it is sharply focused on staff's individual development needs to help them continually build on their knowledge and skills and raise the quality of education for children to the highest level
• strengthen hygiene routines for the youngest children to ensure these are implemented consistently from the start of their care and provide the foundations for them to become more independent.