Bright Horizons Chineham Park Day Nursery And Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at this inspirational nursery highly motivated and with a positive attitude to their learning. They are warmly welcomed by caring staff, settle in extremely quickly and are eager to explore the exciting range of activities on offer. Children share strong attachments to their key person. This helps them feel safe and emotionally secure.

Children are immensely curious and remain deeply absorbed in their play throughout the day. This is because staff plan an enticing curriculum with activities that embrace children's unique interests and preferred pattern of learning. These sustain children's engagement for long periods of time and results in an atmosphere throughout the whole nursery of wonder, awe and excitement, from children and staff. For example, babies gather together excitedly for a cookery session, thoroughly enjoying this sensory experience. Older children delight in making paper cup telephones, giggling and proudly exclaiming 'I can hear you!' as they talk excitedly to each other through paper cups. Children love to experiment, for example, by carefully mixing mud and water to create 'mud slime' before adding other natural materials they find outside into their muddy concoctions. Staff share a strong vision to encourage children to persevere and keep on trying. They continuously evaluate and adapt the learning environment, responding rapidly to children's changing interests and needs. For example, they introduce a wide range of challenging physical resources to babies who rapidly learn to crawl and walk.

Staff place a great emphasis on promoting children's self-confidence and emotional well-being. Older children begin to understand and recognise feelings and emotions. This is because staff support them to learn how to regulate these emotions through a nurture programme that is in place throughout the nursery. Children's behaviour is exemplary. They are highly considerate of each other and play extremely well together. All children are extremely confident as they take risks and build resilience. Outcomes for all children are excellent.

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

• Since the last inspection, leaders have taken significant action to drive improvements across the nursery. The inspirational leadership team are highly reflective and encourage staff to continually reflect and evaluate their own practice. They have excellent support systems in place for staff and their well-being is given high priority. Recruitment, induction and supervision processes are robust, and involve the whole staff team, making staff feel highly valued and supported.
• Inspirational managers have a clear vision for their broad and highly ambitious curriculum. This is thoroughly understood by staff and is delivered extremely well across the nursery. Staff working with children of all ages use a range of different teaching styles and adapt their interactions to ensure the experiences on offer are exciting, challenging, and well-sequenced. This means children benefit from a wide range of learning opportunities which build on what they know and help them make rapid progress from their initial starting points.
• Staff are acutely aware of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on children's communication and language. They are highly skilled in supporting children's communication and language development, including for those who speak English as an additional language. Staff spend time learning several key words in children's home languages to help them settle and to support their well-being. They provide daily small-group language sessions and are consistent in engaging children in meaningful back-and-forth conversations. Staff continually introduce new words as children play. They ask thought-provoking questions, allowing children plenty of time to think deeply before they respond. Books and singing are an integral part of the day.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are supported extremely well. The passionate and knowledgeable special educational needs coordinator builds close and professional relationships with parents, carers and other agencies. Individualised plans for children with SEND are regularly reviewed and discussed with parents. There is a positive focus on what children can do and how they can be nurtured to make excellent progress from their starting points.
• Partnerships with parents are excellent. Staff keep parents closely informed and involved in their children's all-round development. Parents speak extremely highly of staff and appreciate the detailed information they receive about their child's day. They comment on the resources and drop in sessions provided by the nursery that provide guidance and ideas for addressing topics at home. For example, they provide advice about preparing children for a new baby and ways for handling behaviour at home. They mention that their children make excellent progress, which they attribute to the excellent teaching provided by staff.
• Children's health and physical well-being is supported superbly. Staff ensure that children spend lots of time outdoors being active. Children move in a range of ways, such as using wheeled toys and scooping water and sand and mixing them together with various utensils. Children enjoy a wide variety of freshly prepared and nutritionally balanced meals. Hygiene routines are encouraged from a very early age and staff work tirelessly to ensure that these routines are firmly embedded.