Busy Bees Day Nursery at Chafford Hundred Station Side

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children really enjoy their time at nursery. They say 'goodbye' to their parents at the door and happily accompany staff to their room. Children have close, supportive relationships with their key person, other staff and their peers. Babies snuggle into their special person before crawling off to find some toys, while pre-school children greet their friends as they arrive and explore the activities on offer together. Children are confident communicators. Babies babble happily, waiting with anticipation for staff to acknowledge and respond to them. Toddlers develop a love of books. They sit with staff to listen to their favourite stories. Pre-school children approach staff to share their thoughts and ideas, and to ask for help.

Children behave well. They take turns, share resources and play happily alongside other children. Older children use chalk to draw patterns on the concrete outside, while babies happily make marks using plastic trucks and coloured paint. Staff narrate what they are doing, naming the different colours of the paint as the colours mix. All children make good levels of progress in relation to their starting points. Staff know what children's interests are and what they need to learn next. This enables them to plan activities and experiences that excite, inspire and motivate children to extend their learning.

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

• Children enjoy a wide range of exciting activities and experiences. They explore activities that staff provide and help themselves to easily accessible toys from low-level shelves and boxes. However, staff working with the younger two-year-old children are yet to organise their new room and provide a similarly wide and accessible range of activities and toys.
• Overall, staff organise the daily routines well. However, the pre-school room has had some staffing changes. Consequently, not all staff are fully clear on what they should be doing. For example, staff have yet to find an effective way to organise mealtimes to keep children fully engaged and patient. Children quickly become side-tracked and copy the actions of others, such as banging their knives and forks on the table. This raises the noise level in the room, which further hinders staff from communicating with each other and children.
• Staff have a good understanding of their role as a key person. For example, they swap with other staff so that they can attend to their key child's personal care needs. This helps to strengthen the bond between children and their special key person. This helps all children, including babies, to feel confident and happy.
• Children enjoy healthy, balanced and nutritious snacks and meals, which help to support their good health and physical well-being. Staff take great care to follow well-organised procedures to keep children safe. For example, red or green coloured plates and bowls alert staff to children who have dietary or medical reasons for not eating some foods.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Staff share a wide range of information with parents about their children's days and their progress. This helps parents to support their children's learning further at home.
• Pre-school children enjoy learning about plants and flowers. Staff provide sunflower seeds and help them to plant the seeds in a brightly coloured bucket. They introduce children to new words, such as 'germinate' and 'seedling', which children repeat and use correctly in their play.
• Staff work with school teachers from a number of local schools. They share information and encourage teachers to visit, where possible, to meet the children and find out more about their achievements, characters and what they need to learn next. This helps to support children to move onto school with confidence.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive good levels of support. Staff liaise with external professionals and parents to decide on children's next steps to help them close any gaps in their learning.
• The manager maintains a good oversight of staff practice and the effectiveness of the educational programmes. Regular supervision meetings help staff to identify aspects of their development to improve and any concerns they may have about their key children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• work with staff to improve the variety and accessibility of resources to encourage children's independent play further
• support staff, particularly those in the pre-school room, to help them identify ways to organise daily routines more effectively.