Busy Bunnies

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff greet children as they arrive and are always on hand to provide cuddles and comfort. Staff know the children very well. Children are confident and settled in this welcoming nursery. Staff help the children learn about different cultures in a meaningful way. They design activities based around children's heritage and holiday experiences. Staff gather meaningful information from parents to learn about significant cultural events, which helps children to learn about different cultures. For example, displays of the various international foods and cultural greetings, represent children's home experiences.

Staff interact skilfully and support children's learning enthusiastically. Children have high levels of curiosity and concentration when they play with the wide range of resources available and learn to be resilient, and they are willing to have a go at activities independently. Staff praise the children for their efforts, and children are proud to share their achievements with staff and their parents. This supports children's well-being. Relationships are caring and respectful. This helps children to make good progress in their learning because they feel safe, secure and ready to learn. Children have positive attitudes to learning.

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

• Staff plan an ambitious curriculum to meet the interests and needs of all the children. For instance, staff know that children show an interest in colour, making marks. Staff encourage children to investigate colour changes. For instance, children add rolls of tissue paper into various glasses of primary coloured ink and water. Older children predict the secondary colour that mixing two colours will make. Younger children show high levels of dexterity as they hold their coloured pencils very well. They draw small circles on paper and concentrate on completing colour frame puzzles correctly.
• Effective strategies are in place to ensure that children's personal development and speech and language are progressing well. Children acquire good language. Staff value children's contributions and introduce them to new vocabulary. They encourage children to gain high levels of self-esteem. Staff celebrate children's birthdays with a nursery party. Staff and children sing 'Happy birthday', talk about their party celebrations, inflate balloons and excitedly blow out candles on a cake that they share with friends. Staff skilfully use this time to develop new mathematical language skills. For instance, they ask young children to count the number of birthday candles and name the colours of the balloons they inflate.
• Staff talk to children about the importance of aspects of personal care, such as tidying away resources, putting on their own shoes and washing hands before eating. This contributes to children's good independence and school readiness from a young age.
• Children delight in exploring the natural environment, supported by attentive staff. They recall the important facts, taught to them by staff, about how plants and fruit and vegetables grow. They have cherry, fig and apple trees in their garden and know when fruit is ready to be picked to eat. They gain a good understanding of the wider world.
• Staff set high expectations for behaviour and help children to learn about and respect each other's uniqueness. Children are kind and find the praise they receive from staff highly motivating. They replicate this modelled behaviour in their own play.
• Parents describe the nursery as a home-from-home environment where they feel their child's individual needs and interests are carefully considered and nurtured. Staff regularly share information about children's progress. However, not all parents know what staff are currently focusing on with their child's development so that their learning can continue at home.
• The manager and staff are passionate about making continual improvements within the nursery. The small staff team feel extremely supported in their roles and morale is high. Overall, the manager provides access to a wide range of support and mandatory training for staff. However, there is less focus on support for staff to widen their training opportunities to enhance the quality of teaching and strengthen the quality of education provided.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen parental involvement and share more information with parents to help them extend their children's learning at home
• build on the opportunities for staff's professional development that focus more specifically on developing an expert knowledge of teaching and learning.