Busy Bees Day Nursery at Preston Ashton House

Inclusion: Expected standard

Leaders have secure procedures in place for identifying and supporting children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who face other barriers to their learning. Staff are knowledgeable and have received appropriate training to help them fulfil their roles in supporting children with SEND. They implement individual support packages, including targets set by outside agencies, and monitor these closely to measure the impact. Additional funding, such as early years pupil premium and inclusion funding, is used wisely to support the children it is allocated to. This helps to ensure that children with SEND make progress from their individual starting points.

Leaders and staff are proactive in finding out about children's unique needs before they start. They ensure that they have sufficient information about children and an appropriate care package in place before they start. Staff work closely with specialist teachers and professionals to support children's feeding and to undertake additional training specific to children's needs. This ensures that children are safe and well supported from day one.

Curriculum and teaching: Expected standard

Leaders have made improvements to the quality of the curriculum since the last inspection. They consider the range of children that attend and design the curriculum with a focus on personal, social and emotional development to secure the foundations for future learning. Staff support children's communication and language and mathematical development particularly well. They narrate to babies as they play and immerse toddlers in an environment rich in language. Staff model mathematical language, such as 'full', 'empty', 'float' and 'sink', which they encourage children to copy. They support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities by using visual prompts and objects of reference to enhance their understanding. This helps all children to communicate in their preferred way.

Overall, the curriculum is typically taught well. Most staff have an effective understanding of the curriculum and, at times, some teaching is excellent. While there are no significant gaps in teaching, it is clear there are stronger and more confident members of staff who implement the curriculum more successfully than others. For example, when teaching children to use scissors, some staff do not consistently support children to hold them correctly. Furthermore, at times, some staff do not fully implement the intentions for the activities they are providing. As such, this hinders the new skills children are developing.

Achievement: Expected standard

Overall, children achieve well across the areas of learning. They are chatty, confident and motivated to learn. Children skilfully count from one to 10, sing number rhymes and use prepositional language. They talk about past activities, such as going on a pretend bear hunt, and discuss the sensory experiences they enjoyed. Children have effective recall and memory.

Children are confident communicators. Younger children name a range of animals, foods and characters from books. Older children hold lengthy back-and-forth conversations and use words such as 'volcano', when they observe water overflowing from a vessel. Children enjoy reading with staff. They are eager to join in with parts of the story they remember and share their views on what is happening in the pictures. Babies learn to move from playing alongside one another to playing with their friends in activities, such as 'row, row, row the boat'. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, are developing an array of new skills and are all well prepared for their next stage of learning.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Strong standard

Leaders implement incredibly secure routines from the baby room through to the pre-school room. They establish a culture of respect and form lovely relationships with children. The youngest babies benefit from bespoke and personalised routines, mirroring what happens at home. They transition to the nursery routine slowly as they progress through the rooms. Children know the golden rules, such as 'no running' inside, and parents and carers comment that their children even implement these when at home.

Expectations for positive behaviour start in the baby room, with staff modelling how to use resources correctly. Staff consider the unique needs of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities when sharing their expectations. They recognise that some children need more support and offer this with sensitive and gentle encouragement. Children behave beautifully and form respectful relationships with staff and their friends.

Leaders place a high priority on punctuality and monitor patterns of attendance consistently. They work closely with the local authority to ensure that non-attendance is reported and that children are accessing their full entitlement. For groups of children that leaders have identified as vulnerable, the company provides funded places during the school holidays to ensure continuity of these children's care and learning.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Expected standard

The key-person system is typically well established. Staff collect a wealth of pertinent information to find out about children's needs when they first start. Key persons are assigned based on shift patterns and children's attendance to ensure key staff can complete all care routines, such as feeding, changing and sleep routines. This promotes children's emotional wellbeing and helps them to form deep bonds with staff and feel secure at nursery.

Staff working with older children help them to recognise and express how they are feeling. For instance, some children struggle when it is time to share the resources. Staff encourage children to express this frustration in words and request a little longer to finish their activity. This helps children to learn the correct words to describe their feelings.

Leaders recognise that the local area has a high number of children with oral tooth decay. With this in mind, they have adapted the nursery's menus to reduce sugar content. Furthermore, they have introduced a toothbrushing scheme to teach children about the importance of healthy food choices and regular toothbrushing. Effective hygiene routines are well embedded across the nursery. Children learn the correct way to wash their hands from staff modelling the routine. This promotes children's overall positive health and wellbeing.

Leadership and governance: Expected standard

Leaders are passionate and have worked diligently since the last inspection to make positive changes to the nursery. They have an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses and what they want to improve next. Senior leaders play a significant role in the nursery. They provide a wealth of support to the staff team, ensuring their workload is manageable. Leaders make strategic decisions that are in the best interests of children. For instance, in anticipation of receiving additional funding, relief staff have been sought to allow key persons to provide one-to-one support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. This prevents any delays in children accessing the support they need.

Since the last inspection, leaders have implemented new arrangements for staff supervision. They observe the rooms holistically and provide training to help staff understand children's different ages and stages of development. This is working well and staff's confidence in delivering the curriculum is increasing. However, coaching and training do not yet focus precisely on identifying and addressing staff's individual areas for improvement. Some staff do not have targets for improvement and for those who do, they are not monitored frequently enough to measure the impact. Because of this, there are some minor inconsistencies in the quality of teaching across the team.