Bright Horizons Mount Carmel Day Nursery and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The quality of teaching is variable. Although babies are treated with kindness and have opportunities to sing songs, explore animals and experience play dough, staff sometimes overlook opportunities to offer good levels of commentary as they play and fully extend their learning. This restricts them from making the full progress they are capable of.

Despite this, younger toddlers have fun and show good developing knowledge of animals as they play interactive games, such as 'What's in the Box?' Staff support toddlers to discuss the different sounds animals make and where they live on the farm. Older toddlers enjoy mark making with glitter and water and discuss different shapes and patterns. Their imaginations are fostered well as staff encourage them to make predictions and join in when reading the story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'.

Children are well supported to learn about adopting healthy lifestyles. For instance, the nursery has recently participated in the Healthy Early Years London programme, an awards scheme funded by the Mayor of London. This supports children's understanding of the importance of eating a range of nutritious foods, being active and developing good oral health habits. Overall, children show they are happy and settled and receive consistent messages to learn about appropriate behaviour. This supports them to behave well.

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

• Staff working with babies are caring and sensitive towards their needs. They plan a range of experiences for them to explore. However, they do not give them high enough levels of support to develop their language and communication skills as they play. This hinders their ongoing learning and progress.
• Older children benefit from a varied and exciting curriculum to support their development. Although older children generally receive good levels of support with their learning, on occasions, some staff do not skilfully question children to fully challenge and extend their thinking skills and knowledge to the very highest level.
• Leaders have been working hard to try to address some challenges with staffing arrangements. However, children sometimes experience interruptions during their learning and play when staff frequently need to swap rooms to meet the required ratios.
• The knowledgeable and passionate manager regularly evaluates the provision and is committed to making ongoing improvements. For example, staff have recently engaged in positive behaviour management training and have developed new knowledge on how they can enhance interactions at mealtimes. Despite this, not high enough focus has been given to improving the learning experiences for babies.
• There is an effective settling-in procedure in place to help children settle with ease. For instance, staff gain detailed information about children's interests, needs and dietary requirements. Arrangements in place allow children to get to know staff and their new environment gradually. This supports children to settle in well and form positive attachments with staff.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive good levels of support. This is evident as staff work closely with other professionals to plan and review appropriate next steps in their learning. This means children make steady progress in relation to their starting points.
• New staff benefit from a thorough induction programme. For instance, staff are required to complete a range of mandatory training, such as first aid, safeguarding and food hygiene. This means staff have good levels of support to understand the responsibilities of their roles.
• Overall, most parents are complimentary about their experience at the setting. They state that staff are kind and committed to their work. They discuss that their children enjoy attending and are making good progress. Some parents discuss there has been some challenges with the consistency of staff. However, it is recognised that staffing across the sector has been more challenging since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Children show they have good relationships with staff, who frequently offer praise and encouragement. This helps to boost children's confidence and learn about expected behaviour and boundaries. Children show good levels of emotional well-being.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider must:

• improve how staff working with babies support their language and communication skills to extend their learning to a consistently good level; this is to help babies make the full progress they are capable of. (by 28 April 2022)

The provider should:

• review staffing arrangements and consider ways for children to have less interruptions during their learning and play
• build on staff's questioning skills, when working with older children, in order to challenge and extend children's thinking skills and learning to an even higher level.