Bright Horizons Wilmington Day Nursery and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children, including those new to the nursery, settle well. Young children enjoy the closeness of cuddles with staff, which helps to develop strong bonds. Older children confidently talk about their experiences and recall events, such as when they carved pumpkins and named the shapes that they carved, including a triangle and semi-circle. Children thoroughly enjoy their time at nursery and access challenging experiences that enable them to make good progress in their learning. Children have good opportunities to widen their awareness of the wider world and to be ambitious. For example, they explore with staff what they want to be when they grow up, and then review this after their year in pre-school. Their initial ideas of wanting to be 'Superman' evolve into being a fire fighter, after a visit from the fire service.

Children behave well and show great consideration for others, for example helping them to wipe paint off of their hands. Older children enjoy staff giving them responsibility for supporting others. For instance, they are tasked with helping the younger children find and put on their coats. Staff enable children to learn right from wrong and they develop good friendships. For example, they enquire who is going to be at nursery and are excited when their friends' names are mentioned.

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

• The members of the management team are newly in post and have evaluated the strengths and areas for improvement across the nursery effectively. They have well-targeted ideas for development and successfully support the staff to enhance their professionalism. Staff reflect that the management team supports their well-being effectively. For example, staff have time during their working week to complete written work and also coursework required for a qualification.
• Young children enjoy listening to songs sung by staff. For example, to support children while they wait for snack, staff sing action rhymes and children watch in awe at their faces and hands as they do the actions. Staff also use simple sign language to help children young understand what is happening next.
• Managers have introduced new guidance for staff to use when observing and assessing children's development and planning of the curriculum. The implementation is in its infancy and staff are not fully confident in their knowledge of the new system. This has led to minor weaknesses in practice. For instance, not all staff fully understood the individual planned next steps for all children and, on occasion, planning for activities was not thoroughly thought through.
• Young children happily engage in conversation with others about their chosen play. One child took delight as they found the fire engine from the basket of cars and trucks. They indicated that this was a 'nee naw' and continued to identify two further fire engines and pointed out the lights. This showed skill in identification, good knowledge about the engines and also effective communication and language skills.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Staff successfully build relationships and encourage parents to be fully involved in their child's learning. Parents share information about things children have been doing at home. For example, they share activities and achievements from home, which are written on a paper leaf and hung from their 'tree' in the pre-school. Staff use these as discussion points to ignite conversations and enhance children's skills of recalling events.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive early support. This enables prompt diagnosis and plans to be implemented swiftly. Staff receive help and advice from the special educational needs coordinator to support them in their practice. Managers use any additional funding children receive specifically to enhance the outcomes for individuals.
• Staff enable children to learn about other languages and cultures. They gain a clear knowledge of children's backgrounds and heritages and seek support from parents with aspects such as key words in their home language. Children hear these words and begin to adopt and use them in their conversations with others.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to embed the new system for the assessment of children and planning of the curriculum
• strengthen systems to ensure that the next steps in learning are consistently known by all staff and that every activity planned to support next steps is fully effective.