Busy Bodies Child Care Centre

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children excitedly enter the welcoming nursery environment. They build exceptionally strong bonds with staff and demonstrate that they feel safe and secure with them. Staff nurture the individual personalities of babies and support their sense of security superbly. Key persons provide highly flexible settling-in sessions and ensure consistency for babies when they move to other rooms. The excellent progress that children make stems from the secure attachments that they have with staff. There is a wonderful ambience of positivity throughout this nursery. Children are at the very heart of this setting, in every aspect of their well-being. Children love being outdoors and competently construct, using real tools. They confidently share the rules they need to follow to stay safe, with each other and the inspector. Children are highly confident and independent learners.

Children's behaviour is excellent. Staff are clear about expectations for children to be kind and to share. Children show these very good social skills in abundance. For instance, in the garden, they take turns on equipment, offer to share resources and help their friends with tasks. When cooking, children patiently wait their turn and share out the dough mixture and cutters with their friends. Staff demonstrate consistent and thoughtful role modelling. Children develop excellent self-help and independence skills. They develop a secure understanding of good hygiene routines. For instance, they explain that they must cover their mouths when they cough to prevent them spreading germs to others.

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

• Staff plan and provide an extremely clear and well-sequenced curriculum that the manager monitors as he works alongside them. Staff know the children exceptionally well and pay meticulous attention to building on their learning, using their interests, in a way that excites and inspires children.
• Management and staff create an inspirational environment where children are eager to explore and experiment. Children engage in arts and music festivals where they learn about different artistic techniques, local and cultural music and hear the sounds made by the 'violin', 'ukulele' and 'Tibetan' bells. The nursery is at the heart of the community it serves. Children and parents take an active part, for example, by providing donations for the local food bank.
• Outdoor provision offers an ambitious and innovative curriculum. A newly extended outdoor space further extends imaginary play for children of all ages. Children choose to spend much of their day outside. They play enthusiastically with water trays with guttering to create moving water. Children use a whole variety of containers to move, scoop and catch the water. They develop their large-muscle skills as they climb, balance and run in the large outdoor space. For instance, they stack plastic milk crates and add wooden planks to create a small obstacle course.
• Small-muscle skills are superbly promoted. There are daily opportunities for children's mark making across the indoor and outdoor provision. For example, children can freely access clipboards and a range of art and mark-making materials when they need them.
• Teaching is excellent. Staff never miss an opportunity to extend children's vocabulary. They introduce new words and ask meaningful questions to support children's thought processes. Extra-curricular activities, such as yoga and dance, provide children with opportunities to develop and gain skills required for their future learning.
• The learning programmes incorporate a wealth of interesting and meaningful learning experiences. For example, children help to grow vegetables in the nursery garden and enjoy cooking and eating them. They thoroughly enjoy their weekly cooking sessions, which promotes healthy eating. Recipes are then shared with parents.
• The manager fosters a culture of reflective practice throughout the nursery. His regular reflections allow the provision to continually improve to ensure that children excel from their experiences at nursery. The manager is extremely passionate and has a clear vision and engages staff and parents for the continued development of the nursery.
• The excellent partnership between parents and staff greatly benefits children's learning. For example, parents receive detailed information about their child's progress in written and verbal reports. The verbal and written comments from parents are extremely positive. Parents find staff 'amazing' and 'nurturing'. They say the nursery's efforts to communicate and involve parents in every step of their child's learning are admirable.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• continue to enhance the systems for monitoring staff members' practice to consistently encourage and sustain the already outstanding teaching practice.