Bright Horizons Hinchley Wood Day Nursery and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at the setting and happily separate from the parents with support from staff. They develop good friendships with other children and staff. Young children bond well with their key person, supporting them to settle quickly. Children learn to share and take turns, and older children are beginning to do this independently. This shows that these skills are being learned and embedded, and that staff sequence children's learning successfully. For example, older children negotiated to share the connectors for making models from straws and thanked each other for their kindness. Children are confident to speak with others and happily share their experiences. For example, they explain what they like to do at nursery and the activities they enjoy.

Toddlers thoroughly enjoy their 'animal boogie' sessions. Staff read and sang the song from the book and children joined in with their instruments, shaking their rattles to the beat. All children remain engrossed in the interactive experience, enhancing their concentration and literacy skills. Older children have good name recognition and can sound out letters. This supports them as they move on to the next stage of their learning, such as school. Staff know the children well and the key-person system is effective. This enables successful planning of learning experiences that staff base upon what children need to learn next and their interests. Therefore, children make good developmental progress overall.

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

• The recently appointed, well-qualified manager has a clear intention for the curriculum and vision for the nursery. She is building an ethos of team working and fully values the input from staff into the planning of the curriculum. She complete reviews of the provision and targets areas for improvement effectively.
• Staff have a clear understanding of the ambitions for the curriculum and what children need to learn next. However, on occasions, they do not make the most of their interactions with children to achieve this. For instance, staff do not always instigate discussions with younger children to strengthen their communication and language skills. Also, sometimes, staff do not persist in building on older children's counting skills during planned activities.
• Children show a good awareness of feelings and understand the effect of these. For example, a child explained that the faces on the toys showed nervousness. They added that this may be because it could be their first day at nursery. This enables children to learn about empathy and being sensitive to others' needs.
• Overall, partnerships with parents are good. They say their children settle well and the new manager takes any concerns seriously and takes immediate and appropriate action. However, the information staff share with parents is not always consistent. This does not help them to fully support learning at home.
• Staff work effectively together as a team, and this includes bank staff who know the routine and children well. They comment that they receive good levels of support from each other and the manager. For example, the manager adapts to differing needs and readily makes changes to staff's working hours and patterns. This supports their well-being successfully and enables them to feel valued.
• Children learn the importance of adopting healthy lifestyles. For example, during activities they talk about eating fruit and why this is good for them. They also develop skills for the future, such as serving themselves at mealtimes. This also helps them to understand about portion control, good manners and sharing.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive early support. The special educational needs coordinator supports staff to enable them to involve other professionals and plan effectively. This means that children have individualised plans for their care and learning needs.
• Children take part in many interesting and challenging activities that capture their imaginations. For instance, young children explore the texture of the cornflour and water mixture, and older children discover how ice melts. These experiences strengthen their concentration levels while enhancing their awareness of taking turns.
• Staff encourage children to learn about similarities and differences and embrace children's cultures. For example, staff speak a wide variety of languages and are able to engage children in conversations in their home languages and English. This helps children to have a strong sense of belonging. Staff also seek support from parents with the correct pronunciation of key words in other languages.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance partnerships with parents to ensure that they consistently receive up- to-date information about their child's development, to support learning at home
• build on staff's knowledge to enable them to make the most of their interactions with children, to securely implement the learning intentions.