Fatima Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and staff create a warm and friendly learning environment for children. Children are keen to explore the activities on offer and show high levels of concentration as they engage in learning. They focus intently as they pick up coloured bears with tweezers and persevere when they encounter difficulties. Children pay attention to the enthusiastic staff, which helps to deepen their level of learning.

The curriculum is ambitious for all children. Leaders understand how to sequence the curriculum so that children can build on their existing skills. For example, babies learn to copy sounds and say simple words, whereas older children use more complex words and hold conversations with their peers and adults. Staff have a good level of knowledge about children and incorporate their interests into planned activities.

Staff teach children to be respectful and caring towards their peers and other adults. They use songs and rhymes to remind children to use manners and to help each other with routine tasks. Children learn to cooperate with one another and form strong bonds with staff and other children. They are confident to explore the environment, and they develop the skills needed to prepare them for their eventual move to school.

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

• There is a focus on mathematics in the curriculum for pre-school children. Staff successfully weave mathematical concepts through a range of activities that children engage with throughout the day. For example, staff create a shop role-play activity where children buy items. They price items in pounds and pence and label the weight of items that children choose. This develops children's knowledge of how different numerical values are used.
• Staff support children's communication and language development well. They interact with children during play, asking questions that support children to contribute their own ideas. They help children to connect events in familiar stories to other activities they are engaged in. Staff help children to learn new vocabulary as they label characters in stories and describe the properties of materials that children play with. As a result, children become effective communicators.
• Children learn to be increasingly independent. They serve their own food at mealtimes and take responsibility for tidying up throughout the day. However, there are some tasks that staff complete for children that children can do for themselves, such as wiping their own hands and face after eating. As a result, children do not benefit from all opportunities to develop their independence.
• An effective key-person system means that staff know children well. They review children's level of development on a termly basis to identify what children need to learn next. However, some children make progress more swiftly and exceed their learning targets before individual assessments are reviewed. This means that children's targets do not always reflect their current level of ability.
• Staff have regular opportunities to improve their own knowledge and skills. They are keen to learn new information about how children learn. Leaders support staff to implement what they have learned in training into their interactions with children. Staff say they have grown in confidence as a result of the support they receive from leaders. This means that children experience an environment that is continually improving.
• Leaders have a good understanding of how to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They support staff to identify any gaps in children's development and contact external agencies where further support is needed. Staff support children who speak English as an additional language effectively. They promote the use of their primary language as well as helping them to learn a good level of English.
• Leaders are passionate and committed to delivering high-quality experiences for children. They are reflective and proactive in developing practice within the nursery. They spend time with staff, modelling practice and promoting professional development opportunities for them. Leaders use what they know about children to create improvement plans. This helps to enhance learning experiences for children.
• Parents speak highly of the experiences their children receive at this nursery. They value the support they receive as a whole family unit and appreciate the detailed communication they get daily about what children have been doing. Leaders and staff are committed to building strong relationships with parents and take time to get to know them and their children from the earliest opportunity. They share ideas of how parents can support their children's development at home, which helps to provide consistency of care.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• maximise opportunities for children to develop their independence
• enhance the assessment process, so staff identify more precisely what children need to learn next.