Christopher Robin Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time at the nursery and are happy to leave their parents and enter with familiar key staff. Babies receive good care and attention from the staff, who nurture them and provide comfort. They enjoy exploring the environment and building on their physical and social skills. They enjoy climbing into the ball pool to play with each other, posting puzzle pieces and listening to stories.

Toddlers and older children engage well in activities and enjoy imaginative play with their friends. They are eager to engage staff in their chosen imaginative play experiences, such as dressing up and shopping for 'food' to make a 'meal'. They enjoy doing puzzles and building constructions that they manoeuvre their cars around, and take turns and share well. They interact well with staff, who listen to them and extend their communication and thinking skills.

Children behave well and learn what is expected of them. They develop their communication and language skills from an early age. Staff are good at incorporating children's interests and what they need to learn next in their interactions with children. Children enjoy using the outside area and share how they run, climb and play with their friends there. They explain that it is chilly as there was no sun, and that is why they had coats, hats and gloves on.

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

• The management team engage with staff continually to provide guidance and monitor curriculum planning, staff practice and staff well-being. They encourage staff to reflect on their room environments and staff report how the changes made have had a positive impact on how children play and learn in their rooms. Staff receive support for their professional development and managers build on any training at staff meetings and supervisions.
• The special educational needs coordinator and other staff actively seek support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They support parents to get diagnoses and implement support plans to assist in closing gaps in learning.
• Mealtimes are social events where children and staff sit together and talk about their day so far and their different food choices. Children receive encouragement from an early age to choose and dish out their own food. This builds on their awareness of healthy eating and their personal independence skills.
• Children demonstrate great creativity. They use their play to re-enact life experiences and role play their imagination. For example, older children enjoy going on a dragon hunt outside and share how it will soon be Chinese New Year. They talk about what Chinese garments they will wear, and how they will pack bubbles, vegetables and dumplings in their imaginary backpacks for the dragon to play with and snack on. They go 'over', 'under' and 'through' the garden to find the dragon. Children totally engage in the activity and eagerly share what they have learnt with the inspector.
• Partnership with parents is very good. Parents are very positive about 'stay and play' sessions, and share how useful they found these in seeing what their children do and in building relationships with staff. They share how they appreciate the observations and information that staff share on their online system and in person.
• Staff are nurturing and give comfort to newly settling children, engaging them in play while cuddling them. However, at times, it is challenging for staff to support all the children as well as they would like, because current systems lead to several new babies starting simultaneously. This, along with staff needing to support other recent starters who also need attention, leads to children taking longer in the morning to settle.
• Children readily share their views with staff. Staff listen and use these conversations to build on all areas of children's learning. Children gain a good awareness of other cultures and diversity during activities and discussions. For example, children celebrate different festivals and staff seek familiar words from parents in their home languages to support children's involvement in the nursery.
• Children enjoy expressing themselves. However, opportunities for them to make meaningful marks, such as lists during role play or patterns on objects outside, are not freely accessible. At times, children's access to resources such as chalks, paint, pens and paper is limited to when staff make these available to them. This then restricts how children can build on this skill in readiness for their next stage of learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review and improve the system for starting and settling new children, particularly babies, to enable key staff to build on children's sense of security for these new starters and others who have been recently settled
• increase the opportunities available for children to choose materials to help them practise their early writing skills during their play.