Kids Kingdom Day Care

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are overall happy, settled and secure in the environment. They are confident to explore the range of age-appropriate activities set up for them. New children settling into the baby room appear calm and content. The established settling-in procedures help children become familiar with the routines. Babies and toddlers receive nurturing care as they engage in activities planned to build their social skills. They confidently explore the environment alongside each other, knowing that staff are nearby to support them. Pre-school children develop their independence in learning and join in with activities enthusiastically with staff, who engage their concentration well. For example, as they cut real fruit in the role-play area. Pre-school children are confident in managing their own self-help skills, such as serving food and can freely put on their own coats.

Children are friendly, polite, and well behaved. Staff use positive and consistent language to support turn taking in all age groups. For instance, toddlers are encouraged to help each other find their shoes. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents and carers are unable to enter the premises. Children make good progress in their learning, including those with additional funding and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The special needs coordinator works with parents and the local authority to ensure that specific plans are developed to support children.

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

• The manager and staff provide a broad and challenging curriculum, helping children progress in their learning. At times, their intention of what they want children to learn is too wide. This means that sometimes staff do not focus activities sharply enough on specific knowledge that children need to learn.
• Parent's feed back that the staff know their child well and describe how the setting gives regular updates about their children's development. For example, they describe how they can access information about their child's next steps in learning through an online app. Additionally, staff also give parents daily feedback through a communication book which parents can share home information in. The manager has adapted procedures to ensure parents are well informed about their child's learning and development in light of this. For example, through organised video calls and daily diaries.
• Daily routine activities, such as mealtimes, deliver opportunities for children to develop their own abilities. Pre-school children use utensils to serve their own food and develop their self-help skills in pouring their own drinks and serving their own meals. However, staff do not consistently encourage younger children to develop their independence skills, such as putting on their own coats or self-selecting their own drinks.
• The established key-person system is effective. Staff use information from parents to help new children become familiar with the setting and routines. Children are emotionally well supported as they prepare for moving between rooms within the setting.
• Children enjoy using their imagination. Pre-school children use real-life objects in the role-play area, such as real fruit and vegetables, allowing them to develop their imagination while engaging their senses. Babies are supported to explore all areas of the classroom in particular, the water play area. Staff support language development through repetition of new words and naming the objects that are available.
• Staff are proud to work at the nursery. They feel valued and work well as a team. Staff report that they feel they are listened to and can contribute towards improvements to the experiences of the children. They feel that they are supported by the manager to take part in ongoing training to develop their skills and knowledge.
• Children have access to an outdoor area which is safe and suitable, providing many opportunities to be active and develop their physical skills. Leaders have plans in place to develop and enhance the outdoor area to further provide opportunities for a wider range of outdoor experiences.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• communicate the curriculum intentions more clearly to staff so that they can feel confident to consistently put into practice the exciting intentions for children's learning
• strengthen staff practice to create more ways to help younger children manage and build upon their independence skills.