Little Bears Day Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provider has a vast awareness of different theoretical approaches to child development and a deep understanding about the benefit of different curriculum approaches. She accumulates these into a broad and well-balanced curriculum with a heavy focus on developing children's communication and language skills. Staff know the curriculum intentions and understand how to put this into practice. As a result, children generally benefit from rich experiences that boost their communication and language skills. Enjoying stories is crucial to children's learning. Babies bring adults story books showing their desire to be read to. Older children take immense joy in sharing books about things that interest them, such as dinosaurs. They talk with a great sense of authority, identifying the different types of dinosaurs and correctly pronouncing their names. Children talk about their favourite characters and can retell familiar poems, rhymes and stories.

Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) well. They are quick to identify when children's development does not meet expectations and take immediate action to draw up support plans and access guidance from external professionals. Therefore, all children, including those with SEND, make good progress in their learning at the nursery.

Children's behaviour is exceptional. They show a strong sense of belonging at the nursery. The nursery is warm, cosy and inviting. Staff create a homely feel, where children have their personal items, such as comforters and slippers, in baskets within easy reach when they need them.

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

• The curriculum has a strong focus on encouraging children to learn outdoors. There is a wealth of exciting opportunities for children when they chose to be outdoors. Staff have made a beach inside the garden cabin. This follows on from some children saying they have never been on holiday and played on the beach. All ages of children enjoy playing in the cabin, digging and exploring and feeling the sensation of the sand on their skin.
• The provider reviews and adapts the curriculum and environment to maintain children's interest. For example, in the pre-school room, children explore a very well-designed role-play area. Here, children act out their experiences and explore using real-life, familiar items.
• Children concentrate and show excitement in their learning. They grow vegetables in the garden and harvest these, hoping to eat them. Children are disappointed when they find that slugs have eaten some of their vegetables. However, children learn about nature and decay through this experience. Staff provide fresh vegetables for older children to use to make soup. They eat the soup at lunchtime, recalling what ingredients they used and building on their prior learning.
• On occasion, older children become frustrated during activities. Staff are quick to respond and console them. However, staff do not encourage older children to reflect on their experiences to help prevent their feelings of frustration when things do not work out as they would like.
• At lunchtime, children wait for their food. To promote children's good manners, they do not start eating until everyone has their meal. However, this means that some children wait for a relatively long time for their young age. During this time, some quieter children in the group are not encouraged to take part and join in group conversations.
• The key-person relationships are effective in helping children to settle. Each morning, parents drop children off in their nursery room and talk to staff about how children have slept and how they are feeling. The exchange of information helps staff to find out ways that they can support children during the day.
• Parents are placed at the heart of all children's experiences and valued by staff as partners in children's learning. Since the last inspection, the nursery has introduced new ways to exchange information with parents and this has been extremely successful in each understanding about children's experiences. Staff also discuss the benefits of sharing concise and immediate information with parents to help engage them in children's learning.
• The provider reviews the work of staff, the environment and children's progress. As a result, she has a good oversight of all matters at the nursery. The provider is highly motivated and leads the staff team with professionalism and dedication.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• encourage opportunities for children to think critically about their learning
• expand the curriculum focus during all times of the day, including when children are waiting at mealtimes.