Flitwick Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy, well settled and engaged in purposeful activity. Staff gather information from parents when children first start about what they know and can do. This helps staff to adapt the environment to support children to settle in. Staff are kind and nurturing as they help children to form secure bonds. They know that children need to feel safe and secure to be ready to learn. From the start, staff help children to learn about their emotions and the vocabulary to express how they feel. Staff are consistent in how they support children to start to regulate their behaviour. Staff work with parents to devise appropriate strategies to help children who need more support.

Staff know children well and provide a range of resources and activities that reflect children's individual interests. They use their professional knowledge of typical child development to develop stimulating activities that successfully capture children's interest. Younger children enjoy exploring play dough. They learn new words, such as splat, pop and push as they manipulate the dough. Staff purposely provide such activities to help children build strength in their hands to help them to use cutlery. Older children use tweezers to pick up pom-poms that they sort by colour. This also helps them to further develop the muscles in their hands to help them use scissors.

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

• Since the last inspection, leaders and staff have worked hard to establish and implement a curriculum that helps children gain the skills they need for the next stage in their education. Staff understand the curriculum and plan effectively for each child. They review children's progress regularly and this helps to identify any emerging gaps in children's knowledge or development.
• Staff working with children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) liaise closely with other professionals and parents. They plan and implement targeted interventions to help children catch up or, in some cases, to support parents to seek further professional involvement.
• Children's safety is promoted well at the nursery. Staff are vigilant to identify emerging hazards in the environment and take prompt action. They sweep up and discard fallen sand, which presents a slip hazard for children. Leaders review and interrogate accident and incident forms completed by staff to help to identify where changes in the environment may be needed to reduce the number of accidents.
• Parents are positive about the nursery and state that their children are happy to attend. They say that staff really care about providing their children with the best support and education. Parents add that they are well informed about their child's progress in learning.
• Staff interactions with children are warm and gentle. They are enthusiastic in their work and are child focused, following their lead in play and introducing words and phrases that help to develop their understanding and vocabulary.
• Children readily choose to look at books and staff read them to children on request, as well as at specific points in the daily routine. Building further on children's emerging love of books and stories, staff have introduced a library for children to borrow books to share at home.
• Babies receive lots of reassurance from caring staff. They settle quickly and their faces beam with enjoyment when staff blow bubbles or sing songs. Staff adapt their interactions well to meet the individual needs of children. They understand that babies benefit from routines to help them to settle and build confidence to explore. Staff provide babies with lots of opportunities to practise their physical skills as they gain increasing control to walk and climb.
• After lunchtime, when some children take a nap, other children are quietly occupied in their choice of play. At these times, staff do not always notice or join in to ensure children benefit from good-quality interactions to develop their communication and language skills further.
• Staff say that they enjoy working at the nursery and that they are well supported to fulfil their roles. They receive regular supervision meetings that help to identify further training and coaching to help them improve further. Staff say that they feel valued by leaders. They work well together to implement the nursery's aims and ethos.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff to provide consistency for all children to engage in meaningful interactions that help them build their communication and language skills, particularly in the post-lunch period when some children are sleeping.