Hopscotch Day Nurseries (Regents Park) Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provider's education programme is ambitious and carefully sequenced to support all children to make the progress that they are capable of. Children have strong relationships with staff and feel safe and secure at the nursery. They seek out staff for reassurance and comfort when needed, and very young babies and toddlers demonstrate high levels of confidence and independence in their play and self-care routines. For example, when babies have finished their lunch, they push back their chairs from the table, reach down to find their flannel from beneath their chairs and wipe their own hands and face before going off to continue playing and learning, clearly demonstrating great familiarity with the daily routine and self-efficiency in these care tasks. This supports them well for their next stage in learning.

The key-person system means that children receive tailored support from the moment they start, to help them settle and support staff to plan carefully for their individual needs. Staff use their detailed knowledge of children's unique family circumstances to focus support for what children need to learn next. This helps ensure that all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress. Children are eager to learn, and enjoy exploring books, rhymes and songs at the setting. Staff find creative and engaging ways to bring stories to life, which supports children's early literacy and develops their growing vocabulary. For example, children delight in exploring shaving foam outside to represent the swirl of the snowstorm in 'We're Going On a Bear Hunt'.

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

• The curriculum in place is carefully thought out and grows in complexity over time to match the needs and abilities of the children. Leaders continue to build on the knowledge and skills of their staff by providing a comprehensive package of staff training, coaching and support to ensure the intention for children's learning is shared and easily identifiable in activities and daily routines. This supports staff to understand what they are teaching children and why. As a result, staff become confident and skilled when implementing the curriculum in their everyday practice and interactions.
• Staff promote children's communication and language well, overall. They get down to the children's level and interact with them warmly. They ask questions that promote children to think creatively and find solutions for themselves. For example, when toddlers struggle to build the train track, staff point out the difference in the grain on the top of the wooden pieces of the track from the bottom, which is darker. Staff ask what they can do, and children work out for themselves that they need to turn all the pieces over so that the lighter coloured pieces are faced up before they try connecting the track together.
• Staff support and encourage all children to be independent. For example, older children pour their own drinks, and serve their own vegetables. Very young babies are able to feed themselves. Staff further support younger children's independence by modelling simple language to help them communicate their wants and needs, such as 'more, 'pudding, please' and thank you. In addition, staff underpin this further with simple Makaton sign for key words, such as 'finish' and 'waiting'. When children use simple words or gestures, staff celebrate their efforts and their peers join in, clapping enthusiastically along with the praise and recognition. Children are learning to be self-sufficient and value the contributions and successes of their own and others' achievements.
• The staff are kind and treat children with respect. For instance, they find their comforters before putting children down to sleep and seek permission before changing their nappies. They use visual prompts for children who have additional needs to help them understand what is being asked of them. In general, this contributes to children's positive behaviours, and they develop a sense of security. However, on occasions the rules and boundaries that are in place are not consistently reinforced by all staff. For example, staff do not always remind children about how to share and look after the resources. At these times, staff do not fully support children to learn expectations and consequences.
• Staff work in partnership with multi-agency professionals and parents. This supports staff to implement strategies to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They work effectively to ensure that plans are reviewed and updated frequently and ensure that children receive any additional resources that they are entitled to. This supports children with SEND to fully access the curriculum and make progress to close gaps in their learning.
• Overall, parents are happy with the provision at the nursery. They say that they feel well supported by their child's key staff. In addition, they feel listened to by the provider when issues are raised. However, managers do not consistently ensure that all parents are aware of what their children are going to learn next, or share ideas of how parents can support them at home. This does not help them to continue their child's learning at home and make even greater progress than they currently make.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to consistently implement the behaviour policies of the setting and strategies to support children to fully understand what is expected
• improve systems for sharing ideas and strategies about how to support children's learning at home.