Buttercups Day Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time at the nursery. They develop strong friendships with their peers and are happy, safe and well cared for. Babies develop warm, trusting relationships with staff, who offer them comfort and cuddles. They smile warmly at staff, who recognise and respond to younger children's emotional needs sensitively. Children behave well. They are polite, courteous and respectful of the differing needs of their peers. For example, as they chose favourite songs and rhymes, they join in with 'row row the boat', holding hands and being kind and gentle with their friends.

The curriculum enables children to make good progress in their learning and development. Opportunities for younger children to develop their emerging physical skills are promoted well. For instance, babies experiment with pulling themselves to stand and take small steps, holding staff hands, as they become confident in their growing abilities. Toddlers and pre-schoolers are excited to learn. They develop good listening and attention skills, for example when they share favourite stories. Children, including those who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those in receipt of additional funding, benefit from the personalised one-to-one support for their learning and development. This has a positive impact on the progress they make from their starting points.

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

• The manager is a strong and capable leader. She uses her wealth of experience within early years to lead her staff team well. The nursery has newer staff, who are developing their own knowledge and skills in teaching to embed their practice. The manager provides effective coaching, supervision and support. Teaching is good. Staff say that they enjoy their roles and feel valued and supported to fulfil them. The manager recognises that the current supervisions need further revision to enable all staff to identify clear targets, which support them to further enhance their teaching skills.
• Children gains good personal, social and emotional skills. Older children listen to staff and learn how to be kind and respectful in their interactions with each other. Staff praise children and recognise the positive impact this has for children's self-esteem. For instance, pre-school children help to lay the table for lunch. They put out plates, cutlery and beakers, and proudly share the sticker they receive for helping out. Staff support children to develop their emotional resilience and a growing confidence in their own abilities.
• Staff place a strong focus on promoting children's communication and language skills. From the outset, children benefit from a language-rich environment. Babies and toddlers hear new words as they play. For example, as children experiment with 'feeding tigers', they learn how to pronounce the word 'stuck'.
• Staff model this clearly for toddlers to hear and repeat back clearly. When some children, including those with SEND, need additional support, staff successfully use visual prompts, Makaton and repetition of words to help all children with their developing communication skills. All children make good progress in their language skills from their starting points.
• Partnerships with parents and other professionals are a strength of the nursery. Staff gain a wealth of information from those who are involved in children's care. They use these strong partnerships to provide a shared approach to children's care and learning. Parents speak very positively about the nursery staff. They say that regular and informative conversations they have with staff help them know about their children's progress and how they can continue to support learning at home.
• Children enjoy learning. They engage wholeheartedly in all learning experiences that staff provide. For instance, children explore paint and excitedly discover how they can mix blue and yellow to make green. They proudly show how they can transfer stamps to make patterns in their artwork and explore marks they make with pens and pencils. Children are motivated to learn and they develop good attitudes to learning. However, there are opportunities within activities that are not always fully captured by all staff, to challenge and extend children's learning even further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the arrangements for the supervision of staff, to identify clear targets that support them to further enhance their teaching skills
• focus more closely on all of the available opportunities within activities to challenge and extend children's learning even further.