Hugo and Holly Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are settled and clearly enjoy their time at the nursery. They develop close bonds with the friendly and attentive staff. Babies demonstrate that they feel emotionally secure as they smile and make eye contact with visitors. They confidently choose from a variety of activities that are interesting and motivate them to learn. For instance, babies reach forward and grasp coloured stacking rings. As they stack them, staff support their early communication skills by introducing the vocabulary of colour. Babies respond positively as they babble and repeat sounds and single words back to staff.

Young children learn about their own self-care as they practise washing dolls with a sponge and soapy water. They are becoming aware of the importance of good oral health as they pretend to clean the dolls' teeth. Children carefully hold a toothbrush and practise the brushing motion on the dolls' mouths.

Children have many opportunities to be physically active. They climb, balance and build as they access a range of movable climbing and construction materials. Children learn to take risks safely as they hold their arms out to balance and walk up and down a plank of wood. Staff position themselves close by, offering a helping hand and plenty of praise and encouragement. They facilitate challenges and encourage children to jump from equipment into their arms. Children are overjoyed and demonstrate pride in their achievements.

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

• Staff provide a broad range of high-quality learning experiences based on children's interests and levels of development. For instance, following older children's interest in letters, staff make sure that there are opportunities for children to practise their early literacy skills. Children are motivated to learn, and engage in activities for prolonged periods of time. Some enjoy table-top activities, such as moulding and cutting dough. Others use chalk to write the letters of their name on the outdoor chalk board.
• Children's behaviour is good. Staff support them to regulate their behaviour from a young age. They set clear expectations and provide a calm environment for children to reflect on their actions towards others. Staff help children to recognise and manage their feelings and emotions. They encourage children to look at their facial expressions in a mirror. This helps them to identify what feelings look like and to recognise how others may feel.
• Children are provided with nutritious, home-cooked meals and snacks during their time at nursery. They sit together to eat in a social environment. Staff interact well with children and engage them in conversations as they eat. Babies are encouraged to feed themselves, which helps to develop their handling skills and coordination.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Staff share information with parents in a number of ways. They speak to them about children's care needs and learning at drop-off and collection times and provide regular updates via an online system. Parents report that they are 'happy with the quality of care' and 'enjoy seeing photos' online. However, staff do not always offer parents enough encouragement to contribute and share information about children's ongoing learning at home in order to support consistency and help children make even better progress.
• Children learn about people's different backgrounds and enjoy activities that support their understanding of cultural celebrations and traditions. For example, they learn that some people do not celebrate Christmas day but celebrate 'St Nicholas day' instead. Consequently, staff successfully support children to understand similarities and differences between themselves and others.
• Staff receive effective support from the management team and value regular supervision meetings. Staff state that they feel well supported both personally and professionally. Less-experienced staff value the coaching and supportive nature of their mentors. Staff induction procedures are good and enable staff to clearly understand their roles and responsibilities. However, leaders and managers do not always identify training opportunities for members of staff whose knowledge of the curriculum is not as strong as others, in order to raise the quality of teaching to a consistently high level and ensure that the curriculum intent is consistently implemented across the nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• further encourage parents to contribute and share information about children's ongoing learning at home, to support consistency and help children to make even more progress
• strengthen supervision and training opportunities for staff to identify minor inconsistencies in teaching and to help ensure the curriculum intent is consistently implemented.