Daisybank Day Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff greet children warmly when they arrive. Children enjoy their time at this cosy and welcoming nursery. They demonstrate curiosity as they independently explore the homely environments and outdoor areas with enthusiasm. Babies benefit from many opportunities to develop their physical skills as they become increasingly mobile. For instance, they confidently climb steps and delight in sliding down the slide.

Staff implement a carefully sequenced curriculum that reflects and builds on children's interests. All children make good progress from their starting points in development. Staff place a strong focus on supporting children's emotional resilience. They invite children to attend for shorter sessions before they attend full time. This enables children to become familiar with the routines, environment and staff. Children settle quickly and demonstrate trusting relationships with staff. For example, children seek comfort and reassurance, such as a cuddle, when needed.

Staff model polite and respectful behaviours to children. They offer regular praise and encouragement. Staff plan activities that promote sharing and turn-taking. For example, during painting activities, staff encourage children to take turns using different colours. This helps to reinforce children's positive behaviour effectively. It also helps children to build strong friendships and develop the social skills they need for their future learning.

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

• Leaders reflect on the nursery's practice. They implement action plans and strategies to continuously enhance the provision. Staff feel supported and motivated. This helps to ensure that all children consistently receive high-quality care and education, helping them to achieve positive outcomes.
• Children's communication and language development are a key strength of the nursery. Staff create environments rich in language and actively extend children's communication skills. For example, staff narrate routines and sing to babies, which increases babies' vocabulary. Older children listen to stories and join in with songs. This helps to strengthen their listening and speaking skills. Through these experiences, children develop confidence as communicators.
• The nursery provides children with healthy and balanced meals and snacks. Staff promote many healthy habits. For example, they engage children in discussions about nutrition and oral hygiene, and they routinely encourage children to wash their hands after using the toilet. Occasionally, however, staff do not build on what has already been taught and learned, to promote the continual development of some self-care skills. For example, although babies quickly learn to wipe their own faces with a flannel, staff do not consistently build on this to help older children learn how to wipe their own noses.
• Staff skilfully sequence learning so that children build on their existing skills and knowledge. For example, they provide activities to encourage older children to use tweezers to move objects. This helps to strengthen children's fine motor skills. These experiences develop children's hand-eye coordination and build the muscle control they need for early writing.
• Children explore the community around them. They access a wide range of experiences beyond the nursery. For example, children regularly visit the local care home and engage in activities with the residents. Staff take children to visit the local shops to learn where things come from and visit the nearby farm to see animals first hand. Staff use these rich experiences to broaden children's knowledge of the world.
• Staff create inclusive, stimulating and inviting indoor and outdoor environments. They make sure that resources are engaging and accessible for all children. However, staff do not consider that when rooms become overcrowded with resources, children become distracted. At these times, some children lose focus and disengage from their learning.
• Leaders carefully plan training to ensure that staff can apply new knowledge effectively. Staff access targeted training and ongoing support to excel in their roles. For example, staff working with babies have recently completed training on the importance of positive interactions for brain development. These opportunities for continuous professional development help staff to ensure that children benefit from meaningful interactions.
• Partnerships with parents and carers are strong. Staff work closely with parents to gain an in-depth understanding of children's individual needs. The key-person approach is promoted well to parents. Parents say they are kept well informed about the progress their children make through online systems and daily conversations. This helps to support a consistent approach for all children's care, learning and development over time.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• encourage staff to implement the curriculum in a way which builds even further on children's already developing self-care skills
• review the arrangements to support staff so that they consistently promote a calm learning environment that fully supports children's learning and development.