Kiddi Caru Day Nursery and Preschool Brislington

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are resilient and motivated learners. Staff help them to feel safe and secure in the nursery environment. Relationships between staff and babies are sensitive, warm and caring. The key-person system is well established and supports children at every stage of their learning journey. Consequently, children develop well, feel confident to try new things and explore their learning independently.

Recent changes to the adapted curriculum ensure that it is broad and balanced to help most children secure the knowledge and skills they need for their future learning. For example, staff read stories that children know well. Staff help children recall sequences of familiar stories and create new versions using their imagination. Staff model listening attentively and respond to children's ideas, extending their language and helping them to feel valued. Consequently, most children build on what they already know and develop strong foundations for their wider learning and development.

Staff promote children's physical development. Babies enjoy practising their walking skills. They cruise between furniture and test their balance walking up and down a ramp freely. Babies choose where to play between the inside and outside environments. Older children test themselves, climbing on the climbing frame, ladders and rope swings. Staff help children to take risks independently and manage their safety well. Consequently, children learn to keep themselves safe and meet their key milestones.

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

• Leaders know that staff training and development is a priority to ensure that staff deliver the curriculum well. They know that some staff deliver the curriculum with more success than others. Leaders work in partnership with other nurseries across the chain to provide mentoring and coaching for staff to develop their practice on key areas of the curriculum. Although this is having some impact, children do not receive consistently high-quality educational experiences to help them make the progress they are capable of.
• Children benefit from effective care practices that prioritise their well-being. For instance, staff ensure children have a calm and safe sleeping environment to help them rest when they need to. Staff work with parents to agree sleep arrangements. This helps staff know how children like to fall asleep. Staff provide them with warm cuddles and stay with children until they are settled. They regularly check children during their nap times and follow safe sleep procedures well.
• Leaders take effective action to support staff's workload and well-being. They listen to staff and parents' views and respond swiftly to feedback and address any concerns raised. This helps build a positive and reflective culture where leaders, staff and parents work together to ensure that all children flourish.
• Staff capture children's curiosity through sensory experiences to motivate them to learn. For example, they help older children make their own dough, choosing scents and flowers to add to their ingredients. Children mix their mixture with enthusiasm and enjoy the feeling of the 'squelchy' dough on their hands. However, staff do not always challenge the children further in their learning so they can solve problems and further develop their critical-thinking skills.
• Children enjoy making marks in a range of ways to support their development in expressive arts and design. They bring ideas from home and develop their tripod grip, making marks and giving meaning to them. Staff model how to extend children's interests by listening to their ideas and providing a range of surfaces for children to paint on. Children proudly share their drawings and marks with their peers.
• Staff support children's communication and language in a range of ways. For instance, babies find animals hidden in coloured paper. Staff sing nursery rhymes to babies as they explore, reinforcing the name of the animal they find. This helps babies to learn new vocabulary. Babies giggle and babble with excitement, enjoying the rich time staff provide to help develop their speaking skills.
• Staffing arrangements are effective most of the time. However, leaders do not always deploy staff well. For example, sometimes at mealtimes, staff do not have the capacity to meet all the children's needs as well as they could. During these times, children become restless, bored or upset waiting for too long, which impacts negatively on some children's enjoyment and engagement.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to deliver the curriculum more consistently across the nursery so that children receive high-quality teaching experiences to help them achieve the progress they are capable of
• strengthen the deployment of staff across the nursery during transition times to consistently meet the needs of all children
• ensure staff provide sufficient challenge to support the older children's critical-thinking skills.