Busy Bees Day Nursery at Shrewsbury

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this outstanding nursery. Babies and children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make exceptional progress. They gain an excellent range of knowledge and skills that prepare them extremely well for their future learning and life. Children are articulate communicators. Older babies relish the challenge of saying words with more complex sounds, such as 'excavator', 'thermometer' and 'stethoscope'. Older children make predictions and ask thoughtful questions, such as, 'Does the black widow spider live in Australia?'

All children have an exceptionally strong desire to gain more knowledge and to extend their skills. Older children show high levels of concentration when they choose to take part in stretching and balancing exercises. They listen attentively to staff and carefully follow instructions. Babies develop excellent problem solving and reasoning skills. They move objects around to find the holes to thread these onto a stick. They know when they have filled a stick and move onto the next one.

Children have extremely high levels of self-control and learn to successfully manage their feelings and behaviour. Staff sensitively help babies to learn that they cannot take objects from other children. Staff expertly help toddlers to understand about the feelings of others.

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

• The knowledgeable and strong leadership team provides outstanding guidance and support to staff. It has excellent systems in place to drive improvements and ensure the highest quality of provision for children and their parents. Staff benefit from an extensive range of professional development opportunities to further develop their excellent knowledge and skills. For example, recent training helped them to enhance their education programmes related to storytelling. Staff understand that sequencing events in stories and retelling them can help to give children a secure foundation to be confident writers when they are at school. Leaders provide excellent support for less-experienced staff to ensure high-quality teaching across the nursery.
• Leaders have an insightful knowledge about the learning needs of the children who attend the nursery. This helps them to create inspirational education programmes that excite children and inspire them to learn. They ensure that children with SEND swiftly receive the support that they need. This includes closely working with other professionals and parents to provide children with specialised, targeted support. They provide children with excellent early intervention to help them to meet their development milestones. For example, they made changes to the layout of rooms for two- and three-year-old children, to further support their listening and communication skills.
• Staff have a deep understanding of child development and how to use their observations of children's achievements to determine what they need to know next. They use their expert skills and knowledge to ensure that each child is helped to reach their full potential. Staff precisely identify how to help children to meet their learning goals. For example, staff carefully sequence the knowledge and skills that babies need to become confident walkers. They expertly support babies to gain the confidence and physical strength to balance and stand without support. When babies stand holding a table for support, they copy staff and clap their hands. They join in action songs and balance on one leg as they wiggle their other foot.
• Partnership working with parents is exceptionally effective. Leaders prioritise parents' involvement in children's learning. This starts before children's first day. For example, parents and babies attend a monthly baby group before attending the nursery. Staff use this time to get to know families. Parents highly recommend the nursery. They say how impressed they are about their child's knowledge of different cultures and how they are extremely well-prepared for school. Parents appreciate the opportunity to meet their child's new key person when children change rooms. This helps to provide them and their children with a seamless transition. Staff keep parents very well-informed of their child's progress and offer valuable guidance to support continued learning at home.
• Children have excellent social skills and play together harmoniously. Toddlers independently access the water dispenser and pour drinks for themselves and their friends. Staff help children to become independent thinkers and to make their own choices. For example, toddlers choose which clothes they will wear when they need to change into clean clothes and quickly dress themselves.
• Staff provide extensive opportunities for children to learn about cultures different to their own. Staff recognise when a garment a child is wearing represents a significant event from their culture and help other children to understand what this represents. Younger children learn about similarities and differences. They explain the difference between a crocodile and an alligator.