Fizzy Fish

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a calm, relaxing and safe space for babies and young children to play and rest. Children quickly develop strong attachments with the cheerful and nurturing staff. They happily engage with staff, confidently turning to them for reassurance, comfort and support when needed. Staff consistently follow parents' routines from home to help reassure babies and young children.

Staff are good role models for children's behaviour. Children learn to be polite and tolerant of one another. For instance, young children patiently wait their turn to select their food at snack time. Children happily play alongside each other and explore the environment. They begin to negotiate their needs with one another, such as taking turns to use the toy screwdriver when they play with construction toys. They begin to develop meaningful relationships and friendships with others.

Staff design the curriculum around what they know the children enjoy doing. They monitor how children play so they can step in to support children who, without their intervention, may fall behind in their learning and development. Children enjoy accessing a range of toys and activities to support their growing interests and fascinations. For example, young children focus intently on filling containers in the sand tray, while babies delight in playing with sensory materials.

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

• Leaders demonstrate dedication and ambition. They evaluate what works well and reflect on how they can make appropriate, and sometimes necessary, improvements to the nursery. They lead a motivated and loyal team of staff, who share their determination to provide the best care for children.
• Leaders sometimes find it hard to define their ethos and intentions for children's learning across the nursery. This means some teaching strategies are not fully embedded into staff practice. However, room leaders and staff know the children well and use this knowledge to plan an appropriate and, on the whole, stimulating curriculum.
• Staff focus on developing children's communication and language skills well. Young children delight in hearing their favourite songs and stories. Babies learn to communicate effectively, such as by pointing and babbling to express their needs. Staff speak calmly and clearly, allowing young children to hear new sounds and words.
• Children develop their physical skills in fun and meaningful ways. For instance, they develop their fine motor skills when they engage in messy play. They have space to develop their balance, coordination and spatial awareness, such as when they climb, ride on toy cars, dig in the sand and run outside.
• Children demonstrate good perseverance skills and curiosity. For example, young children think about how they can attach wheels to large construction toys. Staff narrate what they see them doing, giving them the words to develop their thinking process. Children delight in their successes and try again if things do not work first time.
• Children develop the emotional literacy to help them make friends and develop attachments. Staff quickly step in when they recognise that children are tired or need help. They talk about how the children might be feeling, such as 'sad' or 'frustrated'. This helps children begin to identify their feelings in words.
• Staff place a strong emphasis on promoting children's self-confidence and independence skills. Children are given time to practise and consolidate what they can do. For example, babies learn to feed themselves, and young children put on their own shoes. All children learn to take care of their bodies, such as when they wipe their hands and faces after lunch.
• Although staff understand the importance of a well-planned curriculum, they sometimes do not think about how they can sequence and extend some children's learning further. For instance, when children demonstrate competency in some areas of their development, staff do not always consider how they can build and extend on these skills.
• Staff develop strong partnerships with parents. They work together to provide children with familiar and reassuring routines. They regularly share information with parents, who comment on how involved they feel in their children's care and learning. Parents consistently describe staff as 'kind, caring and professional'.
• Staff support babies and young children to learn about the world around them. They begin to learn about their community when they visit the park and the local library. Children access pictures and books that celebrate diversity, their similarities and their differences. This begins the process of preparing young children for life in modern Britain.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• establish a better understanding of the vision for children's learning, to support staff to embed this into teaching practice
• deepen staff understanding of the curriculum to ensure children's learning is sequenced more precisely to challenge and extend their skills and knowledge even further.