Honeypot Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are warm and attentive in the care they provide for children. Older children excitedly greet their key person when they see them, and staff reciprocate their enthusiasm. This helps children to feel valued and part of the nursery family. Additionally, staff respectfully manage children's care routines. For instance, they ask children for permission to change their nappies. This supports children to understand what is happening, which enables them to switch their focus appropriately.

Children benefit from an extensive range of off-site activities and experiences. For example, staff plan trips to the beach and the nearby woods to build on children's life-skills. Children enjoy travelling on various forms of transport, such as the nursery minibuses and trains. This enhances children's knowledge of their world around them, which promotes their ongoing learning and development.

Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), show high levels of engagement as they explore their learning environment with curiosity. For instance, they enjoy spending time swirling their hands in trays of paint. Staff support them to name the different colours. They respond by telling everyone what colour paint they have on their hands. Staff extend this by encouraging children to think about what happens when they mix the colours together. Children keenly share their observations with each other. This supports them to develop their understanding of cause and effect.

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

• The manager is reflective and she uses a number of strategies to effectively evaluate the nursery. This includes seeking feedback from staff, parents and children. This enables everyone to have their voice heard and be involved in improving the quality of children's experiences.
• The manager has a a clear idea of what she wants children to learn during their time at nursery. This is communicated effectively with all staff. This enables staff to plan for children's learning so that they continue to make good progress.
• The manager considers ways to develop strong parent partnerships. For instance, she uses translation services to communicate with parents who speak English as an additional language (EAL). This enables all parents to be informed about their child's development and to receive ideas for how to promote their child's learning at home.
• Staff receive effective mentoring, coaching and support from leaders and their peers. They benefit from a variety of training opportunities, which helps them to improve their practice. For instance, staff introduced 'calm corners' in each room following some recent training they completed. This has enabled them to arrange the learning environment so that it promotes children's emotional well-being.
• Staff talk confidently about their key children, demonstrating their secure knowledge of them. They work in partnerships with parents and other agencies involved in children's care. This helps them to work together to support all children, including those with SEND, to make good progress.
• Children are supported well to develop an understanding of how to manage their own self-care needs. For instance, staff encourage toddlers to wash their hands after a messy activity. Toddlers enjoy using the portable basin in the room to clean the paint from their hands. They are familiar with the routines that staff have taught them and they know to put their dirty tissues in the bin when they have finished.
• Children generally demonstrate positive behaviour. For instance, when staff ring the bell, children know that this means it is time to tidy up. They actively join in and help each other to put the toys away. However, the staffing arrangements in the pre-school room after lunch are not consistently well implemented. Consequently, staff do not always notice when children need support to manage their behaviour. Additionally, this also impacts on children's opportunities to engage in purposeful play. This does not fully enable staff to meet children's needs.
• Staff plan activities to enhance children's communication skills. For instance, staff support children with SEND to build on their vocabulary by using a series of picture cards for them to communicate how they want to play with bubbles. Staff verbalise what children have communicated, which prompts children to repeat the words back. This enables children to develop their speaking skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staffing arrangements in the pre-school room during staff lunch breaks so that children's needs are consistently met and they continue to benefit from meaningful experiences.