Daisy Daycare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the nursery happy, settled and ready for their day. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, staff greet all children warmly at the nursery's main entrance, with expressive smiles and cuddles if needed. This helps to support their emotional well-being and ensure children's safety. Children eagerly seek out enjoyable and well planned learning opportunities in their nursery rooms. Babies settle in very quickly and build bonds with their key person. They explore their surroundings with interest. Toddlers engage in a wide variety of opportunities based on their interest and next steps in learning. They are beginning to develop individual preferences for learning. Staff have high expectations and plan experiences children find engaging, and which help to ensure they make good progress. Children behave well. They learn to share, to take turns and to be kind to their friends. Staff instil a culture of respect and considerate behaviour.

Children have access to a carefully considered outdoor play area. They regularly go to the local woods and parks to develop their physical skills. Pre-school children develop their coordination as they negotiate an obstacle course to find hidden letters and manoeuvre across a bridge of crates. They use small parachute play equipment and wheeled vehicles, which helps develop their large-muscle skills. Toddlers develop their small-muscle skills as they squeeze and mould dough. Children recall familiar stories. Staff use a range of resources to gain and retain their attention, such as puppets and pictures when reading a book about a mouse. All children develop the necessary skills in readiness for their move on to school.

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

• The provider recruits staff safely and ensures that new staff are supported by more experienced staff. This helps them to become confident and competent in their role. The manager observes and provides feedback to staff on their teaching. This enables staff to reflect on their performance and develop their skills further. Staff complete a broad range of targeted training, that focuses intently on the needs of the children attending.
• Staff provide a broad curriculum which follows children's interests and builds on what they already know and can do. Staff consider children's prior learning as they interact with children in positive ways during their play. However, some staff do not, consistently, identify all of the skills or knowledge they want children to gain from the activities they plan for them.
• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is well coordinated. Staff work effectively with parents and other professionals, such as physiotherapists and speech and language therapists. This helps them to implement specific strategies to help children to make the best possible progress. Additional funding is used effectively. For example, managers use funding to deploy a member of staff as a one-to-one support. This helps all children to access a range of activities throughout the day.
• Older children independently meet their own self-care needs, such as washing their hands before they eat. They help themselves to a drink of water and fresh fruit at snack time and learn about the importance of having a healthy and balanced diet. Staff encourage babies to begin to feed themselves to promote their independence and developing self-care skills.
• Staff identify when children are struggling to manage their emotions. They model the behaviour they expect from children and speak to each other with kindness and respect. Staff provide praise and encouragement and help children to make positive choices as they play.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Staff gather information about children's abilities when they first start. Parents feel that the staff know their children well and describe how the staff give regular updates about their children's development. In particular, they value the ability to access information on their child's learning and development using a recently introduced online system. Parents report that staff take account of their children's learning from home and extend on this further within the nursery. They express that their children are very happy.
• Staff provide children with good opportunities to celebrate what makes them unique and help them develop a strong sense of self. Children learn about themselves and their families. However, staff do not consistently provide enough learning opportunities for children that promote diversity and reflect a range of cultural backgrounds, to help to prepare them for life in modern Britain.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build upon staff's understanding of the curriculum intent and how this is delivered, so they are clear what skills and knowledge they want children to gain from activities and experiences
• support children's awareness of the world further through learning experiences that focus on cultures, diversity and people beyond their immediate experience.