Lilypads Daycare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy the time they spend with staff at the nursery. Staff are nurturing and attentive, and children form close bonds with them. Children show that they feel safe, secure and ready to learn. They have high levels of enthusiasm and engagement as they join in activities with staff or follow their own play ideas. Two-year-old children sustain their interest for extending amounts of time. They focus very well as they carefully mix ingredients to make reindeer food and then use their fingers to pack the food into small bags.

Staff skilfully support children to develop a love of books. Children respond with excitement and enthusiasm as staff read stories to them. Staff make good use of the opportunity to help children to develop their understanding of the themes included in the books. For example, pre-school children explore what it is like to throw snowballs and excitedly help to create the effect of falling snow.

Children benefit from many opportunities to be imaginative and develop their language during role play. Pre-school children develop storylines with their friends and recall their experiences as they use the play kitchen. They pretend to add spices to the cooking pots and demonstrate how hot this makes their mouth when they taste the imaginative food. Friends offer suggestions, such as drinking milk or water.

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

• The manager, who is also the provider, has supported the staff to improve the quality of the provision for children. She has continued to reflect on the quality of the service they provide and demonstrates commitment to further improvements.
• The manager provides staff with good supervision to help them to extend their teaching skills. This includes working closely with the local authority to access ongoing professional development. This has had a positive impact on the quality of teaching across the nursery.
• The manager has made effective improvements to children's education programmes, and staff implement these successfully. Staff have a detailed knowledge of children's achievements and current interests. They skilfully analyse their observations of children's play to identify what they already know. However, staff do not use this information as well as possible to precisely identify and plan for children's current learning priorities.
• Staff recognise when children need additional support to achieve their development milestones. They work closely with other professionals, such as speech and language therapists, to implement targeted support.
• Staff support children's communication and language development well. They provide children with a language-rich learning environment indoors and outdoors. This helps children to extend their vocabulary and develop their understanding of language. Staff provide children who speak English as an additional language with good support. They value the other languages that children speak and encourage them to use these in their play. All children confidently express their needs, wishes and ideas.
• Staff plan a wide range of valuable learning experiences, indoors and outdoors, that motivate children to play and learn. Two-year-old children carefully balance as they walk up and down ramps. They energetically practise their throwing skills and learn how to ride bicycles and scooters.
• Overall, staff work well with parents. Parents appreciate the opportunity for children to take books home to read. Staff value the contributions that parents make to children's learning. They regularly speak with parents to gather information about children's achievements at home and their current interests. However, staff do not provide parents with comprehensive information about their children's current focused learning targets so they can fully support their development at home.
• Children learn how to manage their feelings and behaviour. They develop strategies to manage minor conflict and know when to seek out staff for help. Children gain good social skills.
• Staff prioritise children's emotional security. They make nappy changing a positive experience for children and respect children's privacy during toilet routines. Staff sensitively support two-year-old children to build their confidence as they transition to the pre-school room.
• Staff support children's health well. Children practise their cutting skills as they help to prepare fruit at snack time. They access their drinks through the day and learn about good oral hygiene routines.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• use the information obtained from the assessment of children's achievements to identify precise and ambitious learning targets that fully extend children's knowledge and skills
• extend the parent partnership working to fully inform parents about the current focus for their children's learning.