Busy Bees Day Nursery at Coventry Walsgrave

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children receive the highest level of care and teaching from the dedicated staff team. Every staff member is passionate about delivering the best possible learning experiences for the children in their setting. Staff know children extremely well. They go to great lengths to establish the current interests of the children and build on what they know and can do already. This exceptional, in-depth knowledge of each child helps to create strong bonds between staff and children and supports children to feel safe and secure in their environment.

Staff are passionate about the curriculum for physical education. Children receive a wealth of outdoor learning opportunities. Babies have fun on outdoor equipment as they rock their bodies back and forth, experimenting with balance and positioning. Younger children enjoy mounting wheeled toys and pushing with their feet to help them move along. Older children enjoy challenges and engage in taking manageable risks, such as riding up and down hills. These experiences help children to increase their physical strength. Staff send home physical educational bags. These contain resources and ideas for parents to continue their children's development at home.

Children's diverse backgrounds and religious festivals are routinely celebrated and carefully woven into every aspect of the curriculum. Children benefit from listening to stories and music in their home language. The highly committed team also makes an effort to learn key words in several languages to help children feel a sense of belonging and well supported.

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

• Leaders and managers have extremely high expectations for children and provide a highly ambitious curriculum. They constantly reflect on practice and look for new ways to challenge and improve children's learning experiences. This helps children to flourish and make exceptional progress from their starting points. Leaders and managers support staff to be reflective and set tasks for them to suggest changes to improve the learning environment. Managers then assist staff in implementing these changes. Staff all comment that they feel exceptionally well supported by the management team.
• The curriculum for communication and language is extremely well embedded. For example, babies show excitement and engagement when hearing songs about farm animals. Staff help children by saying and repeating the sounds that the animals make. Babies laugh and giggle as staff make animal sounds, and begin to copy them. This helps younger children to use their voices and form their first sounds. Older children benefit from a truly inspiring, language-rich environment. They enjoy a wealth of accessible books, and highly skilled staff carefully introduce new words while children immerse in play.
• Children's behaviour is exemplary. Children show kindness and affection towards one another. For example, when children are feeling shy and less confident, other children hold their hand and offer emotional support. Children show extremely positive attitudes to learning. They thoroughly enjoy the learning experiences on offer. For example, children use scissors to cut paper into strips and identify numbers on the paper. They sort the numbers and stack them up in order. This helps children to develop their concentration skills and mathematical development.
• Staff make regular assessments of children and carefully monitor the progress that they make. When staff have concerns about a child's development, interventions are put in place at the earliest opportunity. Children receive exceedingly well planned and targeted extra support. If children need the help of external agencies, staff make referrals promptly. This ensures that all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, receive the help and support they need to make rapid progress.
• Children are remarkably well prepared for moving rooms and starting school. Staff carefully consider when the best time for moving rooms is for each child. When children move rooms, the key person and parents will attend transition days with the child to help them settle with new staff and children. Before children start school, they receive multiple visits from their new teachers. This aids smooth transitions for children and, in turn, supports their emotional health and well-being.
• Parents are thrilled with the service that the setting provides. They beam with pride and pleasure as they discuss the achievements that their children are making at the setting. They talk highly of all staff members, and thoroughly appreciate their exceptional efforts. They talk excitedly about 'fun days' that the staff organise, where they invite parents into the setting. They share a wealth of positive feedback about the electronic communication tools that are used to share information. They feel extremely well informed and say they receive several updates about their child throughout the day.