Busy Bunnies Hampton Water

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time at the nursery. Staff take time to get to know children well and ensure their individual interests are supported. Despite recent changes in staff, including a new manager to the nursery from within the group, the provider has prioritised consistency in the key-person arrangements to minimise the impact on children and families. Children are sufficiently confident and secure in the bonds they have with familiar staff to engage with new staff and build new friendships.

Children show good and increasing levels of attention. They are forming friendships and explore shared interests in small groups. Staff join in with children's play, introducing new words to narrate what children do. As children explore how toy cars travel down lengths of guttering, staff talk about how the angle of the guttering changes the speed of the cars. Staff give children plenty of opportunities to make choices. They choose songs to sing and decide when to play outside. Children have good opportunities to develop their physical skills. They create safe zones using stepping stones and narrow beams to walk along as they imagine the floor is lava. This helps children to learn how to work together and practise balancing as they twist, step and jump.

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

• Leaders have established a curriculum that aims to help prepare children for their move to school and life in modern Britain. They support staff to plan appropriately to deliver the curriculum intent and promote children's emerging interests. The provider has plans in place to deliver training to the new staff, some of whom had only very recently started working at the nursery at the time of the inspection. There is a clear focus on promoting good-quality interactions with children, as the provider understands how this underpins children's early learning.
• Staff say that they feel well-supported in their roles. They receive regular supervision meetings and are encouraged to seek training to further develop their knowledge. Staff are supported well to seek professional qualifications.
• Parents are very positive about the nursery. They say that they feel well informed about what their child is learning. Parents state that their children are well supported when they first start at the nursery, which helps them to settle quickly.
• Children enjoy listening to stories. Staff read with enthusiasm, which captures children's attention. They talk about the story and children remember the story plot and phrases. Staff's planning ensures there is a story and nursery rhyme of the month. This ensures all children hear the core story and rhyme, as not all children attend every day. Staff understand that children benefit from repetition to help them remember new learning.
• Staff are kind and the children are at the centre of all they do. They demonstrate respect towards each other and to the children. Staff seek children's consent to change nappies and provide good support and reassurance to help them with toilet training.
• Staff encourage children to become independent in their self-care routines. Children learn to wipe their nose, place the tissue in the bin and wash their hands. They scrape their plates after eating lunch and snack and use safety knives to cut apples into slices.
• Staff work well in partnership with other professionals, such as the host school. They seek feedback from reception teachers from the schools that children move to, allowing them to establish how best to help children for the transition to school.
• Children are familiar with the rules of the nursery and behave well. However, sometimes, moments of conflict are not managed well, such as when children take toys from other children. Staff do not always help children learn how to acknowledge their own and each other's feelings to help them understand the impact of their actions on others. Children are not always supported to develop self-regulation.
• Staff talk to children as they play, although this tends to focus on older children. During group activities, staff do not always consider the needs and stages of development of the younger children to adapt their teaching to ensure all children benefit and have meaningful learning experiences.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help children learn more about their emotions so that they can learn how to express their feelings and consider the needs of others
• enhance staff knowledge and understanding of adapting practice to support younger children and meet their specific needs.