Bumble Bees Private Day Nursery School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children and their families are at the heart of this happy and family focused setting. The long-standing staff team is highly committed and dedicated to ensuring that they provide high-quality care and education. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) benefit from very kind and caring staff who know them incredibly well. For example, staff ensure that small groups of children have access to different rooms, uniquely set up to develop children's interests in creativity, mathematics and literacy. Children thoroughly enjoy exploring the role-play area, spending time making pretend cakes for their friends and developing their imagination. Staff provide children with a range of activities and experiences to support their understanding of others. Children learn about their friends' needs through puppets and stories to support their wider understanding. They celebrate their friends' cultures and learn about others positively. This means children learn to be very inclusive and to value and respect their friends and their families.

Staff plan an ambitious curriculum based on children's needs, interests and ages. Older children delight in listening to rhymes and songs. They excitedly join in making different movements to music, developing their physical and social skills well. Younger children enjoy exploring paints and water play, developing their concentration and perseverance. Babies enjoy exploring musical instruments, encouraging their listening and attention skills effectively. Staff praise and encourage children regularly. As such, children demonstrate very good behaviour. They remind adults to take care, showing that they know how to keep themselves and others safe. Children have developed very strong bonds with staff and each other. All children make good progress.

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

• Staff encourage children to behave very well. Children delight in taking home 'Bumble Bee' certificates to celebrate awards they have achieved with their families. Staff are good role models, showing genuine interest in children and celebrating their achievements with them. This helps to promote children's emotional well-being and positive attitudes to learning successfully.
• Staff help children to learn about good oral health. They support children's understanding of how to use timers to learn how long to brush their teeth for. Children chatter about their different toothbrushes, using language such as a 'manual' after listening to a story, supporting their understanding well.
• Staff provide children with a rich range of activities to develop their literacy and language. They provide children with rhymes and songs to support their developing letter sound recognition. Staff model sign language with babies to support their communication and understanding skills effectively.
• Children benefit from opportunities to make their own choices, for example, about what they want to do and play with. However, at times, staff do things for children that they could attempt themselves, such as wiping their own hands and faces and putting on their shoes. This, at times, limits opportunities children have to attempt things for themselves to support their developing skills.
• Children benefit from activities that develop their mathematical understanding. They support children to extend their learning, for example, by counting days of the week and months of the year, modelling how to use their fingers to add the totals together. This helps develop children's thinking effectively.
• Staff are passionate about supporting children's knowledge of caring for the natural world. Staff encourage children to learn about recycling. They use resources in creative ways to be sustainable. This encourages children to learn to care for the world around them.
• Children demonstrate that they know routines well. They immediately join in with staff to go on an adventure, learning about different animals and their young. However, at times, quieter children are not always consistently supported to take an active part in larger-group activities. This, at times, impacts on their engagement in learning.
• Children with SEND are very well supported. For example, staff undertake specific training to accommodate individual needs. Staff use information from parents and other professionals effectively to identify and plan for children's next steps in learning. Babies settle very well and are cuddled and comforted by nurturing staff who know them well. Staff work very closely with local schools and other agencies to ensure that children are incredibly well prepared for school.
• Leaders and managers are passionate and proactive. They prioritise staff's well-being, and staff are well trained and qualified. Staff love their jobs. They genuinely care for children and their families. For example, staff take part in fundraising to draw attention to and support local needs.
• Relationships with parents are excellent. Detailed information is provided for them about their children's learning and development and how to support learning further at home. Parents appreciate the different ways the setting helps them access information to help them seek further support, such as posters and electronic information. They report that staff go above and beyond to help them and their children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to identify when they can further enhance opportunities for children to do things for themselves to support their developing independence skills
• strengthen staff's skills in including all children in planned activities and ensuring that everyone can take an active part.