Bright Horizons East Greenwich Day Nursery and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Nurturing and caring staff have established consistent routines and expectations that help children to settle in well. Children benefit from accessing a broad curriculum, which provides a wide range of activities for children to further develop and practise their physical skills. For example, younger children in the baby room are motivated and encouraged to take risks safely by staff. They carefully climb up the stairs of the climbing frame and gleefully glide down the slide. Staff have created a purposeful learning environment, which enables children to access additional resources to enhance their play. For example, children select 'bricks' from the construction area and work in small groups, sharing resources and being kind and polite, to build a police baton. When questioned what they are making, children respond, 'A police baton to help the good people and catch the baddies'. Staff plan opportunities for children to develop their fine motor skills, take turns and share. For instance, children enjoy using different-sized containers and jugs to collect and transfer water through funnels into different-sized bottles.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are supported well. Key persons know their children well and skilfully interact with them. This helps children to practise their developing skills and achieve their next steps in learning. For example, staff plan activities that enable children with SEND who are working on developing their social interaction skills to work alongside other children with support.

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

• Children benefit from attending an enrichment club once a week. This enables children of all ages to develop their social interaction, communication and creative skills, as well as their self-confidence. Children also thoroughly enjoy receiving specialist support from a sports coach. The coach is currently working on teaching children football skills, but children also learn skills and techniques related to tennis, gymnastics, rugby and athletics.
• The knowledgeable special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) provides effective support to staff working with children with SEND. She assists the children in preparation for their transition to school. Staff are thankful for the availability of additional training, coaching and mentoring from the SENCo, manager and regional manager. Staff report that this has benefitted them and helped to achieve positive outcomes for their key children, including those with SEND.
• Managers and staff have built good relationships with parents, the regional support team and the local authority early years advisory team. They work in collaboration to evaluate and enhance the provision and curriculum on offer for the children. Parents are complimentary of the daily communication and feedback they receive on their child's learning and development, and they value the progress their children have made since joining the nursery.
• Staff consistently model good behaviour and reinforce high expectations of children's behaviour. They teach children self-regulation strategies and have set up a co-regulation area. This is a calm space, where children struggling to self-regulate can relax, calm down, read a story and apply the breathing strategies they have been taught to relax and become calm.
• Staff have built opportunities into the curriculum for children to develop a sense of responsibility in taking care of their environment. They have developed an eco-committee of children who work collaboratively to lead the nursery to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Children learn that marine plastics have a negative impact on the marine environment and economy and threaten human health. They contribute and make suggestions on how this can be tackled effectively.
• Overall, staff interact well with children and ask questions to enhance their thinking skills. However, at times, staff ask closed questions. At times, staff do not give children enough time to respond to questions, providing the answers for the children instead of letting them think things through.
• Most of the staff have high expectations of children and encourage them to carry out tasks independently. However, at times, some staff do not consistently reinforce these high expectations. For example, at lunchtime, staff serve the children food and set the table for them. They also pour the water for the children, which they are more than able to do independently.
• The nursery has a plethora of books that children can access to enhance their knowledge about different cultures and beliefs. There is a dedicated staff diversity representative at the nursery, who shares the dates of upcoming events and festivals. This helps staff to prepare and plan activities to enable children to celebrate and learn about festivals and beliefs that are different to their own.
• The nursery's health and safety mascot helps children to develop a good understanding of what constitutes healthy eating, a healthy lifestyle and healthy habits.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• make better use of questioning techniques during children's play to enhance their thinking skills
• enhance opportunities for children to develop independence through daily routines.