Little Hubbers Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children benefit from a dedicated staff team. Staff provide a welcoming environment, which ensures that children enjoy coming to nursery and are eager to learn and play. Children enjoy sharing stories and books with staff. Young children giggle and happily join in with repeated refrains as they listen to the story about a bear. Older children are aware of words that rhyme. They learn about letters, sounds and recognising their own names, to encourage their literacy development. This helps them to build the skills they need for their future learning.

Babies enjoy an abundance of sensory experiences. They curiously explore, prod, squash and then eagerly eat up the raspberries and strawberries. Aromas from segments of citrus fruits add to their experiences. Toddlers enjoy exploring the texture of paint as they use a range of resources to make marks. They remark on how the paint changes colour as they place their hands in it and then rub them together. Older children are keen to count and recognise some written numerals. They enjoy problem solving. For example, they decide to line up counters to assist with counting and carefully use their fingers to count the dots. Children behave well. They take turns and share resources, which helps them to develop good social skills.

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

• Staff are very mindful of the impact that the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has had on children's personal, social and emotional development. They have found that new children joining the nursery have struggled more to separate from their carer and form relationships. With effective tailored support from staff, these children catch up quickly and make good progress in their personal and social and emotional development.
• Staff closely monitor children's progress and follow their emerging interests, including what they have been doing at home. They use the information to plan for what each child needs to learn next and help them to make the best possible progress. Staff identify when some children may need additional support in order to make good progress. They make sure that they seek timely support from relevant professionals, such as speech and language teams.
• Staff ensure that all children have daily opportunities for fresh air and exercise. They successfully widen the experiences of children. They visit the fish quay and the beach and have walks along the marina and in the parks. Children have weekly visits to the 'Fit Hub' where they ride trikes, play with hoops and learn how to throw, kick and catch balls. Indoors, children thoroughly enjoy a music and movement session. However, staff miss the opportunity to help them understand the effects of physical exercise on their bodies.
• Staff promote children's communication and language skills well. They give younger children time to respond to organise their thoughts and to form sentences. Babies babble in response to their key person, while toddlers use newly acquired words to point out animals in picture books. Staff working with older children provide good opportunities to them to extend their expressive language skills. Staff sit alongside them on the floor and provide time for children to talk about activities that they are doing. Occasionally, opportunities are missed to expand on and add additional descriptive words in order to widen children's vocabulary even further.
• Staff support all children to gain confidence in their own abilities, such as at mealtimes and during toileting. Children are kind, caring and courteous. They show a clear understanding of expectations and staff offer continuous praise.
• The manager is realistic and constructive in the way she manages staff, including their workload. She offers staff targeted supervision and coaching, which encourages them to reflect on their practice and consider how they can enhance their knowledge. This helps to ensure that children receive the best possible teaching and care.
• Staff ensure that they keep parents informed about their children's development and achievements. Opportunities for parents to provide detailed information about children's starting points in their learning are good. Parents are also encouraged to add information as children progress and develop. Information is shared with parents on a daily basis. Comments from parents are extremely positive. They state that staff are 'warm, friendly and supportive' and that their children thoroughly enjoy attending the nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance staff's already good practice in developing children's expressive language skills and expand on and use additional words when responding to children
• help older children to understand the impact that physical activity has on their bodies.