Kiddi-Creche Private Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are safe and happy in nursery. Staff provide many experiences and activities that children enjoy. For example, children eagerly explore colour mixing with coloured water and ice. They show excitement and anticipate what will happen next as they spray the ice. Children use their hands to melt the ice. Staff support children's understanding and comment on how the heat from their hands turns the ice into water.

Children show they are gaining a real love of books and a knowledge of how stories are structured. Babies confidently turn the pages in board books and point to pictures. They listen as adults read aloud to them. Staff support children who speak English as an additional language well. They use children's home languages, alongside speaking English, to help deepen children's understanding and extend their English vocabulary.

Staff have adapted the way they share ideas with parents due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff use online systems to send photos, assessments and videos, such as the previous Christmas production. Parents comment favourably on the videos as they can see children playing and learning happily and know they are settled. Staff respond to children with compassion and care. They identify those who need additional emotional support and offer cuddles and reassurance. This helps children feel secure and gain confidence. Children are considerate to their friends, and staff praise them as they share and take turns. Children offer to share the tools as they create cakes with dough.

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

• Children benefit from a dedicated key person, who is responsible for planning their learning, supporting their individual needs and working with parents. All staff have a good overall knowledge of what each child needs to learn next. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are well supported. Staff work closely with parents, external services and professionals to meet children's individual needs. They plan targeted support to help children make good progress in their learning.
• Healthy lifestyles are promoted well. For instance, children take part in yoga classes to help promote their well-being. They enjoy choosing a different yoga pose, which helps to increase their balance, strength and coordination. Children eat nutritious hot meals and healthy snacks. In addition, oral health is promoted. Staff talk about oral hygiene practices with the children and support them to practise tooth brushing.
• Children enjoy developing their physical skills. For instance, they participate in planned dancing sessions and take part in relay races outdoors. However, staff do not always recognise children's high level of engagement in their own learning and interrupt them. For example, they sometimes hurry children to finish off an activity, as they want them to move on to another. This means children are, sometimes, rushed and do not make the most of their learning and exploration.
• Overall, staff support children's early language development well. For example, during play with wet and dry cereal, staff introduce language, such as 'crunchy' and 'sticky', to help to broaden children's breadth of vocabulary. However, this is not consistent practice with all staff. At times, staff use immature language, such as 'doggies, birdies' or 'duckies'. This means that children do not consistently hear the correct pronunciation of words to fully extend their vocabulary.
• Relationships with families are strong. Staff work hard to establish effective methods of communication with parents from the start. Parents provide comprehensive information about children's early experiences. This allows staff to plan learning opportunities children may not otherwise receive. Parents comment on the valuable support staff give to support children with SEND, noting that staff go 'above and beyond' to assist their children.
• The manager has a good understanding of the strengths and areas of development for the setting and the supportive staff team. She spends time in the rooms observing staff and sets targets for their continued professional development in meetings. Staff speak highly of the manager and the support she offers to them.
• Children are encouraged to be independent with some tasks, such as brushing their teeth and tidying away their toys. However, staff do not always encourage children to extend their independence skills further. They complete tasks children are capable of trying for themselves, such as putting on their coats and feeding them.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• extend opportunities for children to deeply engage in activities and experiences further, to maximise their learning
• extend opportunities for children to hear the correct pronunciation of words, to further enhance their communication skills
• offer children further opportunities to develop their independence by consistently allowing them to carry out more tasks for themselves.