Bright Horizons Banstead Day Nursery And Preschool

Inclusion: Expected standard

Children's needs are identified through observation and assessment, and staff know and understand each child well. This enables them to put targeted support in place that helps children to make progress, such as strategies to help children focus and engage in activities. Leaders are knowledgeable and share effective approaches with the staff, including the use of visual cues to support children's communication and understanding.

Staff work closely with other professionals and parents to gather relevant information, ensuring that support is well matched to children's next steps in learning. Leaders have created a quiet sensory space that offers opportunities for focused teaching and provides a calm area for children who feel unsettled.

Staff use a range of strategies to help children manage their emotions and energy levels. For example, they encourage children to push against a wall or lay on a mat and focus on breathing. These approaches help children with special educational needs and/or disabilities when they become overstimulated and need support to re-engage in learning.

Staff know children well and recognise when they face barriers to their learning. They are sensitive to children's changing needs and family circumstances, adapting routines to ensure children feel safe, secure and able to participate.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Leaders are aware of the strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum and teaching. They recognise that not all staff are fully confident in what they teach and why. As a result, leaders have supported staff to strengthen their knowledge through training. This is in its early stages and is becoming evident in staff practise.

Staff plan well to reflect children's interests and what they need to learn next. During play, staff ask children questions to extend their thinking. For example, they talk to children about the animals they are washing during water play and introduce new vocabulary, such as tiger or hyena. Children recall past learning, remembering new colours, such as teal, and how they mixed colours together to make green. They use toothbrushes to clean dinosaurs' teeth and comment that they are sparkly white, linking back to previous learning about oral health.

Children's mathematical awareness is promoted throughout the setting. Staff count as children pour cups of water in the water tray, as they feed babies their food and as children stack bricks. Older children are encouraged to count backwards to deepen their understanding of numbers.

Staff ensure that all children's learning needs are met, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They adapt activities to ensure children are able to engage and learn. For example, they work in smaller groups or give additional support to those who need it.

Achievement: Expected standard

All children make steady progress from their starting points and are well prepared for their next steps in learning. They progressively learn new skills as they move through the setting. Babies explore sand, feeling the texture and learning to dig with a spade, while older children manipulate play dough and other sensory materials, refining their fine motor control. These experiences help children to build foundations for later learning.

Children show a love for books from an early age. Babies enjoy interactive stories, exploring textures in the books as they turn the pages. Older children talk about stories using the pictures in books to guide their understanding of the story.

Children develop growing independence and learn to make choices throughout the day. Staff encourage them to carry out tasks, such as blowing their nose, washing their hands and being the daily helper, helping them to gain practical life skills.

Children who may struggle with transitions receive appropriate support, including when moving to school. This helps ensure that children have positive experiences and feel confident to progress to new environments.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Expected standard

Children show respect for one another and listen carefully as they share stories. At circle time, they confidently show the books they have brought from home and enjoy talking about them with their friends. Staff support children's behaviour by reminding them to be careful with books and to use gentle hands, helping children understand how to look after resources.

Leaders support staff to understand children's behaviour. They provide training and guidance that helps staff to recognise when behaviour is beginning to escalate and how to manage and support this appropriately, adapting strategies to children's differing needs. Generally, staff respond to children's behaviour in a calm and reassuring manner. However, at times staff do not offer clear explanations when asking children not to do things, such as when they climb on furniture. This does not consistently help children to understand expectations.

Children explore sensory materials using a variety of resources. They hide their fingers in malleable materials and pretend they are missing, laughing with their friends as they pull them out again. Children play well together independently, taking turns to pick up coloured shapes and match them to the corresponding coloured pots. They correct each other sensitively, when colours are mixed.

Attendance is monitored closely by leaders, who put support in place to help children to attend regularly and benefit fully from the routines and learning opportunities provided.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Expected standard

Staff ensure that effective risk assessments are in place to ensure children's welfare and wellbeing. In extremely warm temperatures, staff ensure that children do not access the outdoors during the hottest parts of the day. Children are reminded to wash their hands before mealtimes and staff model this clearly. Older children are beginning to take responsibility for their own self-care. They recognise when they need to wipe their nose and do so independently, using a mirror to check they are clean.

Staff promote children's independence during mealtimes. Older children help lay the table and are beginning to understand the needs of others. They use coloured name cards to identify other children's dietary requirements and place these where they will sit. Children serve themselves lunch and discuss scraping their plates, linking this to routines at home. Staff encourage them to do this independently at the setting.

Babies are comforted promptly when upset and children's individual sleep routines are well respected. New starters settle well because staff are attentive and use their knowledge of children's favourite things to help them to feel secure.

Staff gather detailed information from parents about children's medical needs, enabling them to support these children effectively. Leaders recognised that the key-person system was not being implemented robustly and have strengthened staff understanding, ensuring a buddy key person supports children during staff absences.

Leadership and governance: Urgent improvement

Leaders have not ensured concerns about children's safety are referred to the local safeguarding partners appropriately. This does not ensure there is a positive culture for safeguarding. Leaders do not consistently share information with parents that relates to children's safety and changes in staffing are not effectively communicated. Monitoring of staff practice is not robust. Leaders do not identify consistently poor practice and do not take enough action to address these weaknesses and to support staff to improve.

Most staff feel they are supported in their roles and attend regular meetings to update their knowledge, particularly around safeguarding. Training is accessed and cascaded to the wider team during staff meetings, helping to build shared understanding. Most parents say that they are well informed about their children's progress and how to support learning at home. Leaders have recently introduced a lending library to promote children's love of books and invite parents to join monthly wellie walks, strengthening engagement.