Bright Horizons Callands Day Nursery and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide calm, well organised environments and routines. Children demonstrate that they feel safe and secure as they follow these routines and spend time interacting with staff. Babies look in mirrors and smile as they see their key person in the reflection. Staff use opportunities throughout the day to talk about feelings and emotions with children. Older children have the skills to resolve minor disputes. For example, as children want the same ball, they make suggestions about introducing a bat and then initiate a game of bat and ball together. Children behave well and have made good relationships.

Leaders have designed an aspirational curriculum that is implemented well. Staff provide experiences that help children to continually enhance their skills over time. They use children's interests to provide exciting, engaging experiences that ignite children's imaginations. Staff carefully consider where to implement activities to minimise distractions to the children. When children show an interest in role-play activities such as camping, staff meaningfully engage with children to capture their imaginations. Staff and children work together to gather natural resources such as sticks and leaves to represent the fire and marshmallows. Children have fun and make good progress in their learning.

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

• Leaders are knowledgeable about early education and enthusiastically share their knowledge with staff. They have taken action to ensure all staff consistently support children's behaviour. Leaders accurately evaluate the quality of children's education and care. They place high importance on the mentoring and support for staff and they regularly discuss how staff can develop their own knowledge and skills. This support is impacting positively on the setting and, as a result, some elements of practice are extremely strong. However, these arrangements are relatively new and as a result, on occasions, there are still some minor inconsistencies in the implementation of the setting's procedures. For example, hand washing procedures outside.
• Staff recognise the importance of providing children with opportunities to be active. Children spend lots of time outdoors and they show real engagement in the experiences on offer. Children use their strength to make ramps for their cars. They take part in games such as sack races with their friends and staff and cheer each other on. Staff initiate ring games and encourage children to run faster or slower. Children gain confidence in their physical abilities and demonstrate high levels of physical skill.
• Staff are skilled at engaging children through story telling. Cosy areas for all age groups have been developed and babies snuggle in for stories as staff read aloud to them and encourage them to join in with animal sounds. Staff read stories with great animation, which helps children to listen with interest. Children recall stories and use the interesting resources that are available to them to act out parts of the book. Children work together as they build houses from sticks, straw and bricks and 'huff and puff' and try to blow the houses down. Children show a real love of books.
• The curriculum for mathematics is implemented well throughout the setting. Staff provide many opportunities for children to practise their counting skills. As children scoop soil into plant pots, staff encourage them to think how many more they may need. Older children accurately count to 10 as they count how many more children need plates at lunch time. As children use size language in their play, staff introduce new words such as 'gigantic' and encourage children to consider whose flower is the tallest. As a result, children continually develop their knowledge and skills in mathematics.
• Staff provide environments that motivate children to develop early writing skills. They provide children with many opportunities to develop their hand-eye coordination. Children enjoy activities such as using fishing rods to scoop up fish. Children have access to a wide range of mark making opportunities and staff model writing for a purpose. Children show their confidence as they attempt to write lists and draw minibeasts that they find. Children are becoming eager and confident early writers.
• Parents are extremely happy with the nursery and the impact of the new leadership team. Parents value the communication methods that are in place to share information about their children's care and development. Staff gather lots of information from families and overall, this is used well to support consistency for children's care. However, on occasions, this information is not always shared swiftly with children's key persons. Therefore, staff do not always have all the information needed to support them to shape their interactions with children to further support their learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• continue to embed the coaching and mentoring of staff to support all staff to consistently implement the setting's polices
• strengthen the communication methods with parents to improve consistency for all children's care and education.