Busy Bears (Durham) Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this high-quality nursery. Leaders plan and create a bespoke curriculum for children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff have a secure understanding of children's development from the baby room through to the older pre-school room. This helps them support each child to learn key skills to help them be ready for school.

Children enjoy a wide range of experiences that they are keen to take part in. Babies are eager to explore the exciting range of wooden and metallic play materials. Toddlers rapidly develop confidence to pour their own drinks and dress themselves as they prepare for toilet training. Older children are highly motivated in their play. For example, they persevere to use scissors to cut sticky tape to make a paper boat.

Children are very well behaved and learn good manners. Staff are lovely role models and take every opportunity to praise children's positive behaviour. Children learn to share, take turns and to help others. For instance, when younger children fight over bean bags in an outdoor target game, older children collect the bean bags for staff as they talk to the children about taking turns and understanding other's feelings. Staff help children learn about differences and how to respect and care for one another and their environment.

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

• Staff support children's communication and language skills well. For example, they adapt the organisation of group times when younger children are present. Staff support children's growing vocabulary through stimulating storytelling, along with many songs and rhymes. They introduce unfamiliar words to support their emerging language, checking that they understand the meaning of the word.
• The caring staff use very effective settling-in procedures to help children and babies feel safe and secure. Babies are treated with loving care and warmth and are given all the reassurance they need to explore and learn. As children move up through the rooms, transition documents and information shared between parents and new key workers mean children settle very quickly and their individual needs are met. Children's emotional well-being is managed sensitively. Staff work with new teachers and parents when children move on to school.
• Partnerships with parents and other professionals are very effective. For example, staff quickly identify when children may need additional support. They work closely with parents and other agencies to put in place interventions to help children. Children who receive extra funding make good progress from their unique starting points. For instance, they benefit from 'Mighty Monster' classes, a multi-sports activity programme to help build physical development.
• Parents confirm they can see their child's development progressing very well through an app, where they exchange photos and updates on how children have been. Parents appreciate the 'home bags' and ideas for supporting their children's learning at home. They comment they feel the management and staff are friendly, caring and very sensitive to the whole family's needs.
• Leaders are committed to ensuring children receive the best care and learning and maintain all documentation highly effectively. They are proactive in making adjustments to the very effective risk assessments, as necessary to ensure all children's safety and well-being.
• All staff are vigilant in ensuring high levels of cleanliness and hygiene are maintained in the nursery. Policies and procedures to ensure children's individual health needs, including the management of allergies and medications are robust. However, not all staff consistently use their commentary and discussions to support children to learn about healthy lifestyles and how to make good food and drink choices.
• Leaders use precise and well-targeted plans for the ongoing development of the nursery. These are identified with the managers and staff working with all age groups, particularly in relation to extending the outdoor play opportunities they provide for children. Additionally, recent staff training to boost language, listening skills and talking is being undertaken to benefit all children's communications skills.
• Managers recognise that on occasions, some staff interactions have less successful engagement with children to build on what they already know, in particular to think and solve problems. This means staff do not consistently extend children's learning fully and children are not always suitably challenged to help them make even better progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• maximise learning opportunities throughout routines, to provide children with consistent messages about the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, including how to have a healthy diet
• improve staff skills to consider the individual needs and development of each child to bring more challenging and enjoyable experiences to extend the learning of each child, in particular for problem-solving and mathematical development.