Busy Bees at Blaby

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time at the nursery and build positive relationships with the staff. Babies snuggle into the staff as they are fed with a bottle and smile when they wake up, happy to see familiar staff. Toddlers are interested in exploring the sand; they say, 'hide it' to staff as they bury small toys and excitedly dig with their hands to find it again. They are eager to fetch the brush to help sweep up the sand when they have finished playing. Pre-school children confidently talk about colours and numbers with staff as they concentrate on throwing beanbags into hoops on the ground. They talk about how many beanbags of each colour they have thrown. Children jump up and down with excitement when staff praise them for their 'good throwing'.

Children behave well and are motivated to take part in the activities. Staff plan the curriculum with the children's interests at the centre and continually consider how they can consolidate and extend each child's learning. Children choose to join the activities supervised by staff. They benefit from the staff's enthusiastic and supportive approach as they engage with them. Staff provide reassurance and extend children's confidence and communication skills as they play with them.

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

• Since the last inspection, management and staff have reviewed and made some changes to the risk assessment procedures followed in the nursery. This ensures they are fully effective and risks to children are swiftly identified and minimised. The whole staff team have a reflective approach to their work. Room leaders work with the staff to identify action plans for the continual improvement of their group rooms. Across the nursery, staff demonstrate a shared vision to continually promote and build on children's independence skills and their communication and language.
• Overall, staff are effective in engaging children and helping their communication skills. Staff use descriptive language as children play to help widen their vocabulary. For example, children taking part in experiments learn they are using a pipette. Babies become engrossed in books. They smile and babble as they point at familiar things in the pictures and touch the pages. However, some staff speak very quickly and provide children with lots of information in quick succession. This results in children not knowing how to respond and not knowing what staff expect from them.
• Staff successfully use opportunities that arise to help children develop a sense of themselves as an individual. During an activity where children work with colours, they comment that their eyes are red. The staff respond gently and suggest that later they look in the mirror to check. After the activity, children were reminded to do this, and staff invited them to look in the mirror. This prompts lots of discussion between the children as they look at each other's eye colour, saying they are blue and brown.
• Overall, the children behave very well. They make friends and work well together. Staff successfully plan activities, resulting in children being interested and remaining engaged for sustained periods of time. However, staff do not consistently help children to think of others or encourage them to wait their turn during activities. This results in some children waiting longer than necessary for a turn because other children move straight back to the front of the line.
• Staff offer support to help parents continue their child's learning at home. They find out about the experiences children have and plan activities that widen children's knowledge and understanding. For example, children learn about veterinarians as they look at pictures and explore resources provided by staff. Children are encouraged to choose a book from the lending library to take home and read with their parents. This helps promote a love of books and supports children's communication and language skills.
• Parents are happy with the nursery. They speak positively about how approachable and supportive the staff are and how they offer flexible care arrangements, whenever possible. Parents can see the impact of the activities their children do at nursery. They gave examples of how their children's speaking skills are improving and how they are becoming more independent in their personal care.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff skills in order that they share information more clearly to give children time to think, work things out for themselves and respond to questions
• support staff to consistently reinforce the rules and boundaries during activities to help children to understand what is expected of them.