Davison Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and staff are extremely dedicated to placing children and families at the heart of everything they do. They ensure that they know every child within their care, and treat them all as unique and individual. The key person system is highly effective, leading to all children building exceptionally strong bonds with familiar adults. All children make outstanding progress in their learning and development. Leaders have embedded a highly ambitious and well-designed curriculum that benefits children greatly. Children experience different cultures and traditions. For example, visitors come into the setting to share the food that is native to their country. This greatly enriches children's understanding of people and communities beyond their own. Children engage with projects in the local community, such as collecting and donating food to organisations supporting the homeless. This helps to teach children about kindness and compassion for others.

Children demonstrate extremely positive attitudes to learning and advanced concentration, that far exceed expectations for their age. They are consistently deeply focused and very engaged in the wide range of exciting learning opportunities. Staff are experts at supporting children to understand and manage their feelings and emotions. They recognise the impact that emotional development has on other aspects of children's learning. Across the nursery, staff warmly and sensitively interact with children. As a result, children become highly competent at managing their own feelings. For example, they suggest using a sand timer to support them to take turns with toys.

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

• Staff provide children with every possible opportunity to be independent. For instance, babies learn to feed themselves and clean their own hands before lunch. Older children queue up to collect their lunch and carry their meals back to the table. After mealtimes, children take responsibility for cleaning the tables. These opportunities help children to be exceptionally well prepared for school.
• Partnerships with parents are exceptionally strong. Staff meet with parents termly to share information about children's progress. Parents describe their children as 'thriving', and they are confident that staff know their child well. The manager and staff build professional and supportive relationships that are valued by parents. Staff help parents to extend children's learning at home by sharing strategies that they use in the setting. For example, they provide a reading library that children can borrow books from, to help them to foster a love of reading at home as well as in the setting.
• Children's interests are followed to enhance their learning. Children particularly enjoy using their imaginations with small world toys. Staff are remarkably skilful at listening to children's play, acknowledging their ideas and extending their learning further. For example, they deepen children's knowledge of castles, as they teach them the purpose of moats and drawbridges. Children listen intently to the information they are taught.
• Children consistently receive outstanding, high-quality interactions from staff across the nursery. They expertly support children to develop their communication and language skills. For example, staff sing to babies, they speak clearly and name items. Staff consistently use sign language to aid their communication, and this is firmly embedded across the whole team. As a result, children become fantastic, confident communicators and use a wide range of vocabulary that they understand the meaning of.
• Managers provide highly effective support for their staff. As a result, morale is high and the nursery has a long-standing staff team that feel extremely well supported. Leaders are committed to the ongoing professional development of their team and strive for continuous improvement. They use a variety of methods to develop aspects of their practice. For instance, they encourage staff to listen to podcasts on mathematical concepts and embrace support from other professionals, such as literacy advisors. This has led to staff being tremendously confident at making story time interactive.
• Staff have a firm understanding of how children learn. They meet the needs of individual children exceptionally well, and recognise every step of progress that children make. Staff provide excellent support for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). They implement highly successful strategies to assist children with additional needs. For example, they use visual communication cards to help children make choices.
• Physical development is a real strength within the setting. Children participate in weekly sports sessions to help them develop their gross motor skills to the highest level. They spend ample time in the garden area practising climbing, running and balancing. Children show tremendous delight in chasing their friends and teachers around the garden during a game of tag. This helps children to learn how to take turns and follow instructions whilst being physically active.