Chatterbox Private Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff know how to build positive attachments with children. For example, they offer children cuddles, reassurance and praise as they play alongside them. This helps children to feel relaxed and safe and engage in new experiences. Staff successfully support children to follow the simple rules. Children are confident and behave well.

Staff plan a broad range of activities and experiences that support children's development across all the areas of their learning. They use a range of effective teaching strategies to support children's communication and language. For instance, the two- and three-year-old children thoroughly enjoy a collage-making activity. Younger children are engrossed as they watch the glue dribble from their glue spreaders. During such activities, staff use commentary to extend the younger children's understanding of language. They introduce new vocabulary to enable the older children to describe the materials they are using.

Children have lots of opportunities to build on their mathematic skills. For example, children count the pine cones as they fill and empty the buckets on the weighing scales. During such times, staff promote children's knowledge of number and compare weights. During water play, children join in and sing a song about five little ducks. Staff encourage the children to count the plastic ducks each time one is removed. They encourage the children to join in with the repeated refrains in the song. Staff provide babies with a variety of activities that promote exploratory and sensory play.

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

• The management team has worked very closely with the local authority advisors to ensure significant improvements have been made since the last inspection. As a result, the management team monitors the weekly planning of the curriculum. The team makes sure that this plan provides clear learning intentions across all the relevant areas of learning and that activities which follow children's interests are incorporated. Furthermore, managers hold regular supervisory meetings with each member of staff to discuss their well-being, their teaching practice and any concerns they may have.
• The special educational needs coordinator now works more closely with parents and outside agencies to get the help children need.
• The management team now makes sure that the food provided follows the government's dietary recommendations and meets the nutritional requirements of children.
• Staff regularly observe children and make accurate assessments of what children know and can do. However, on occasions, the staff who work with the two-and three-year-old children do not consistently build on what children need to learn next. As a result, these children have fewer opportunities to embed the new skills they are learning.
• Staff use a screening programme to identify delays in children's use and understanding of language and to help them plan supportive interventions. They support children's literacy development well. For example, they regularly read to the children and promote their knowledge of letters and sounds.
• Staff provide the children with some opportunities to learn about animals from first-hand experiences. For example, the exotic animal expert recently visited nursery. Children were able to closely observe or hold snakes, lizards and birds. This, along with discussion, helps to consolidate children's learning.
• Staff work well together as a team and are positive role models in promoting children's good behaviour. Parents spoken to feel that staff support children to develop confidence in their own abilities. They feel fully informed about their child's progress and how they can support their child's learning at home.
• Children have opportunities to experience physical challenge and manage risks for themselves. For example, children confidently zoom around on the sit on toys, balance on the wooden beams and scramble up the climbing frame.
• The management team has a clear overview of the nursery's strengths and priorities for development. Consequently, there are clear actions plans in place to improve the overall quality of the nursery. However, there are fewer opportunities for children to gain an awareness of the cultural diversity between themselves and others in the wider community.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• make even better use of the next steps identified for individual children's learning and development and increase the potential for children to make rapid progress
• enhance children's understanding of the wider community and each other's diverse cultures and lifestyles.