Dicky Birds Pre School Nurseries Ltd - Dundonald Road

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children experience good levels of supervision from staff, indoors and outdoors. This helps them to feel safe and secure. As children arrive at nursery, they receive a warm welcome from staff, which enables them to settle quickly. Children play happily and demonstrate positive attitudes to learning. They take delight in looking at books and drawing pictures, which promotes their early literacy skills. There are plenty of opportunities for children to use and hear numbers, which helps to raise their mathematical awareness.

Children are motivated to learn. They respond well to staff's high expectations for their learning. Babies have lots of fun as they explore the various toys and resources available to them. They particularly enjoy playing with malleable materials, such as sand and shaving foam, which supports their creativity and imagination. Outside, older children develop and test their physical skills, such as running, balancing and coordination. With the help of a sports teacher, they learn ball skills and increase their stamina. This supports children's social and physical well-being effectively. Behaviour is good, with older children being polite and friendly. Babies are beginning to play alongside each other, sharing and taking turns.

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

• Staff observe and assess what children know and can do to identify any gaps in their learning. This enables staff to make quick referrals to ensure children, such as those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, receive the additional support they need. As a result, all children, including those who are in receipt of funding, make good progress from their starting points.
• Staff build on children's communication and language skills effectively. They narrate children's play, using stories and songs to extend their vocabulary. Parents confirm that their children have a good understanding and develop their speech well. This was evident during the inspection, such as when older children talked about the 'big dinosaur footprints' and the 'melting ice cube'. These conversations led children to ask questions and share their thoughts, which demonstrates their strong speaking and listening abilities.
• The curriculum also provides children with plenty of opportunities to develop their own child-led activities. For example, children enjoy re-enacting family scenarios in the role-play area. They pretend to cook and make hot drinks. Children learn to express themselves and use their good imagination.
• The manager offers staff supervision and guidance to help with their work with children. Following training, staff have increased their knowledge of how to engage children more in their play. This has helped to boost children's confidence. The manager acknowledges that the monitoring of staff's professional development is not sharply focused to identify their individual training needs.
• Staff create a welcoming and inclusive environment for children. They display children's work across the nursery to raise their awareness of similarities and differences between people. Overall, staff support children who speak English as an additional language (EAL) well. However, they do not extend the opportunities to ensure children use and hear their home languages to further extend their sense of belonging.
• Staff promote children's positive behaviour. For example, they give children lots of attention and praise, which builds on their self-esteem and confidence.
• From an early age, children learn to take age-appropriate responsibilities, such as helping staff to tidy away toys. Those who are old enough manage their self-care needs, including toileting. Children gain strong independence skills.
• The manager evaluates the quality of the provision to identify strengths and areas for development. She is keen to enhance communication with parents to ensure they are all fully informed about every aspect of their child's learning. During the inspection, parents gave positive verbal and written feedback about the nursery. They are very happy with the care and support provided for their children. The close partnership between staff and parents benefits children's learning well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• sharpen the monitoring of staff's professional development, identifying their individual training needs in order to raise practice to the highest levels
• extend opportunities for children who speak EAL to further develop and use their home language in play and learning.