Dickory Docks Educational Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle well in the care of staff. The care of babies is tailored to their individual needs, and staff follow their home routines. Staff support all children with caring and warm interactions. This helps children to feel safe and secure. Children mostly behave well. Pre-school children learn about their feelings and how to manage them. Children throughout the nursery develop their confidence effectively and gain good social skills.

Staff are keen for children to learn and progress. They have a secure knowledge of children's needs, including their next steps in learning and those who may need extra support. On occasion, not all staff promote the learning intentions of the curriculum fully. Children enjoy interesting and engaging activities across all rooms. These help to involve them in their play and learning. Toddlers have fun exploring bubbles. Staff repeat words and sing songs during activities. This promotes children's language development and helps them to remain engaged in the activity. Babies are familiar with stories and songs, such as knowing some actions, sounds and words.

Older children develop their independence effectively. They learn to clean their noses and put the tissue in the bin. Pre-school children serve their own meals and clear away afterwards. They develop a good awareness of healthy lifestyles. For example, they learn to recognise that they might need a drink after physical activity. Overall, staff promote children's good health consistently well, such as regular handwashing.

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

• Leaders are dedicated and committed. They manage the nursery well and are reflective. This helps leaders to identify and make improvements. Staff feel supported in their work and well-being. They receive ongoing support, including training and professional development. Although leaders are implementing good systems and new approaches, these are not always precise enough to help staff build further on their practice.
• Staff have a secure understanding of the needs of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They are proactive in supporting children and their families. This includes completing education, health and care plans and using individual education plans to support children's progress. Staff show good consideration in how they support children. For instance, they use familiar toys to help children manage changes in the routine and picture cards to promote communication.
• Staff support children learning English as an additional language sensitively. Some staff speak the same languages as children. This helps staff to reassure children in their home language, when needed, and it also values their backgrounds and supports children's learning. The use of additional funding is well considered. Leaders reflect that buying books for families to use at home has had a positive impact on children's language skills.
• Staff have a good understanding of children's starting points and their progress over time. Overall, staff support children's learning needs securely, and the key-person system works well. Staff provide interactions that help to build on what children already know and can do. Children learn to focus and concentrate during activities. They recall prior learning, as staff recognise the importance of repetition for children. For example, babies recognise when it is tidy-up time, and pre-school children recall animals and the way they move.
• Children receive timely guidance from staff to help them understand the expectations for behaviour. For instance, staff gently help toddlers to understand that there are enough toys available to share. Sometimes, staff do not manage all daily routines effectively. This includes lunchtime in the toddler and pre-school rooms, where the noise levels rise and the rooms lack calmness. Due to this, on occasion, children's need for reassurance goes unnoticed for short periods of time.
• Children follow good hygiene routines. Staff explain to children that they may have germs on their hands to build their awareness of the importance of hygiene routines. Children have access to drinking water in all rooms. They are offered drinks with their healthy meals and snacks. At times, toddlers do not independently access the drinking water available, and staff overlook encouraging them to do this, to further promote children's well-being.
• There are strong partnerships with parents and professionals. The good communication between staff, parents and any professionals involved in children's care promotes consistency and continuity of care and learning. Parents speak very positively about their experiences of the nursery and the care and learning provided to their children. Staff manage children's move to school well, sharing relevant information with parents and future teachers to support this.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review arrangements for managing changes in the daily routines, such as mealtimes, to ensure staff provide a calm approach and atmosphere to support and meet children's needs consistently at these times
• ensure staff promote children's good health more consistently, including encouraging younger children to drink water at appropriate times, to support their well-being
• continue to build on the good monitoring approach in place to identify and support staff's professional development more precisely, to raise the quality of their practice further.