Honeysuckle Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children happily skip into the nursery, eager and excited to start their busy day ahead. They are greeted by friendly, enthusiastic staff. Children put their belongings away and immediately choose from a wide selection of stimulating activities. Some decide to play alone, while others join in with their friends or staff. The interactions between staff and children are warm and positive. This helps children develop a true sense of belonging.

There is a well-thought-out curriculum in place. The provider works hard to ensure that staff in each room clearly know what children need to achieve before they move to the next room. Staff work as a close-knit team to securely build on children's personal, social and emotional skills across the nursery. For example, at mealtimes they successfully support and teach children to be responsible for setting up tables, self-serve their food, confidently use cutlery to feed themselves and chat politely to one another. This helps to prepare children well for their eventual move to school.

Staff implement positive behaviour strategies exceptionally well. On the occasions where children need reminders, staff sensitively explain the reasons behind the rules. This helps children understand that the boundaries are in place to keep them safe, such as walking indoors and tidying away toys after play. Staff teach children how to efficiently resolve minor conflicts. This is evident when older children recognise the need to use sand timers for taking turns. Children become competent at avoiding situations from escalating, showing increasing maturity and insight.

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

• The highly experienced and capable leaders demonstrate an ambitious vision for the nursery, which they share with staff and parents. They are impressively reflective about the provision they offer. For instance, they recognise the importance of a well-supported and highly qualified workforce to continually raise children's quality of education and care. Leaders readily seek and welcome support from other early years specialists, who have been chosen to lead an extensive programme for apprentices going forward.
• Leaders and staff collectively identify training opportunities that help to enhance staff's knowledge and skills. For example, staff are offered support to positively address children's behaviour. However, the coaching and monitoring arrangements to further improve individual staff's practice is not fully embedded. The leadership team does not always target gaps in staff's teaching robustly enough to help each member raise the quality of teaching to an even higher level. This does not fully maximise children's learning.
• Staff demonstrate a thorough understanding of what makes children in their care unique. They regularly assess children's progress to identify any gaps in learning and provide highly successful targeted support for those children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff work very well with other professionals involved in these children's development, including speech and language therapists. They follow these expert's lead so that children with SEND achieve the progress they are capable of.
• Conversations are hugely welcomed by staff, who are attentive and responsive to what children say. Children rapidly become confident and expressive talkers who initiate discussions with others and share their ideas. They show great enthusiasm and talk about topics that excite them. This is well illustrated when friendly children talk to new visitors about their time at the nursery. While talking about the healthy activities older children take part in, they proudly recall previous experiences where they ran with speed around the field and how it increased their heart beat. This shows how articulate these children are at expressing the impact of exercise on their bodies.
• Overall, teaching across the nursery successfully leads to good outcomes for all children. For the most part, staff efficiently extend children's play and learning, using appropriate teaching strategies. Although children are keen learners, sometimes staff focus on what children know and can do already, rather than what they can learn next. At these times, staff interactions are less effective in supporting children to build on their existing knowledge and skills.
• Partnerships with parents are open, strong and professional. Parents comment on how pleased they are with the secure arrangements at handovers and the quality of information staff share about children's achievements. Parents appreciate ongoing information on ways they can support children's learning at home. For example, children and their families take home the nursery's pet tortoise. They are provided with a comprehensive fact sheet from nursery and learn interesting facts about it, as well as how to care for it. This helps to benefit children's continual learning and development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve the ongoing coaching and support for all staff to raise the quality of teaching to even higher levels
• support staff to consistently identify and implement children's next steps in learning when interacting with children.