Bright Horizons Maythorne Cottages Day Nursery and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle well into the nursery's routines, overall. Those children who need more support to separate from their parents receive close attention from their key persons. Staff discuss the needs of babies with their parents. This helps them to implement routines that reflect what babies experience at home. Staff use children's interests to help them to engage in learning from an early stage. Staff prepare well for children's moves within the nursery and to other settings. They share important information about children well. This helps staff in children's new rooms to understand how best to meet children's learning and development needs.

Staff manage children's personal care respectfully. They work closely with the chef to help to ensure that procedures to manage children's allergies are implemented. Staff supervise babies and children closely as they eat. They gently soothe children when they become tired and monitor them as they sleep. Staff encourage children to manage their self-care. Younger children wipe their own noses and begin to recognise their need for the toilet. Staff support children to further develop their physical skills during weekly sessions with a sports coach, which children enjoy.

Staff support children to behave well. Children show that they acquire positive social skills and good attitudes to learning. Staff provide effective opportunities for babies and toddlers to develop and practise important skills before they move on to the next room.

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

• The manager works effectively with senior leaders to maintain good standards in the nursery. Following significant changes in the way the nursery is organised, the manager has worked hard to establish a more stable and committed staff team. She prioritises staff's well-being and builds on the strengths within her team. The manager shows her ambition for staff, children and families.
• There are effective arrangements to support staff. The manager implements induction procedures to help staff to understand their roles. She delegates leadership responsibilities to room leaders appropriately. The manager promptly identifies and addresses potential issues relating to staff's practice or gaps in their knowledge. This helps to promote children's welfare and contributes to an effective curriculum.
• Staff plan activities that children engage with. For example, toddlers focus for long periods as they join interlocking bricks. Children respond well to the sensory opportunities that staff provide. Babies persevere at their attempts to drape fabric over light lamps in a darkened sensory room. However, very occasionally, staff do not adapt activities well enough to fully extend children's learning. For example, some toddlers are unable to reach far enough to paint a box during a creative activity. Nonetheless, children progress well from their starting points in learning.
• Staff provide good opportunities for children to move their bodies in a range of ways. Babies crawl at pace, pull themselves up to stand and gain confidence to move around unaided. Toddlers show high levels of enjoyment as they move and shake their bodies and bang drums with rattles. Babies and toddlers use utensils and tools with increasing control.
• Staff understand how to sequence learning opportunities for children, including through daily routines and activities. For example, children use ladles to scoop dry sand. They receive encouragement from staff to pour water and use tongs as they self-serve during mealtimes. This helps to develop and strengthen the hand muscles that children need for later writing.
• Staff respect the choices that children make and help children to express their emotions in positive ways. Staff implement successful methods to minimise incidents of unwanted behaviour, such as biting, and share these with parents. The manager and senior leaders focus on the needs of children as they review the emotional environment, care routines and the structure of the day.
• Parents appreciate the flexible approach of staff, particularly as children are settled into the nursery. They speak highly of the care and affection that their children receive from staff. Parents value the regular information that staff share with them, and the opportunities to engage in their child's learning and social events.
• Staff provide some children with good opportunities to recognise their home language and cultures, and those of their friends. However, this is inconsistent across the nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance the existing support to develop staff's teaching skills, so that they understand how to adapt teaching to further extend children's learning
• broaden opportunities for all children to recognise and value their language and cultures, and those of their friends.