Little Me Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled. Those who need extra support on arrival receive reassurance, which helps them to settle. Babies benefit from warm, responsive care from staff who know their needs securely. Older children build positive relationships with staff. They engage in discussions with staff, who provide appropriate responses to help build on children's language skills.

Children enjoy a good variety of activities and learning experiences. Babies explore sensory materials, such as 'gloop', with enthusiasm. Toddlers develop their concentration, for example when exploring shapes or playing a matching game. Pre-school children delight at finding cobwebs using magnifying glasses and enthusiastically talk about what they have found. Overall, the environment, activities and staff interactions support children's learning consistently. Staff understand their key children's individual needs and how to support their learning securely. They use additional funding carefully, for example by buying resources to offer children new experiences.

Children gain skills for the future. Most children understand the behaviour expectations and behave well. For example, pre-school children line up sensibly to scrape their plates after lunch and then carry their fruit back to their table to eat. Staff praise children regularly, which promotes their confidence. Pre-school children learn about cooperation and being fair, such as when they vote to make a group decision. Children develop good independence generally. For instance, babies gain skills to independently feed themselves with a spoon and toddlers learn to take off their coats.

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

• The manager is reflective and identifies areas to improve. Staff feel well supported in their roles and the manager helps them to develop their practice and skills. This includes supervision meetings to mutually discuss their work, observations of their practice and feedback with targets. This supports staff's professional development well, along with relevant training.
• Children play and learn in a clean and well-maintained environment. There are plenty of resources and interesting activities to capture children's interest in learning. Sometimes, the noise level rises in the older children's rooms to a high level. This means the environment is not always consistently calm to support some children's behaviour, which at times deteriorates during busy times of the day. In addition, this does not always promote an atmosphere which helps children to fully focus during some activities.
• Staff guide children's behaviour appropriately. They remind children about the expectations, such as toddlers using 'kind hands' with others when playing with toys. Staff work with parents when children show challenging behaviour to promote a consistent approach to this at home and at nursery. They consider the support children may need well, such as a dedicated space to spend time in when they feel overwhelmed. Staff ensure parents are informed of any significant incidents relating to children's behaviours.
• Staff monitor children's development closely. They use assessment effectively to identify any gaps in children's progress. When needed, staff implement individual educational plans to help close gaps in learning. This promotes children's good progress from their starting points. However, at times, staff do not implement the curriculum intentions as well as possible. This does not fully challenge children's learning and development to promote further progress. For example, sometimes staff do not fully consider how to extend younger children's developing independence.
• Children from a young age begin to make their own choices. For instance, babies enjoy choosing a toy that represents a song to sing. The babies have fun, moving to the rhythm. Older babies show they know the actions and are learning the words. Staff enthusiastically join in, responding to babies with eye contact and positive responses, such as facial expressions. This provides a secure foundation to support children's positive relationships and their communication and language development from an early age.
• Partnerships with parents and carers are good. They state there is effective communication, saying they are well informed about children's days and progress. Parents comment positively about the settling-in arrangements and the progress their children make. Overall, the feedback from parents is very positive. On occasion, when needed, the manager ensures that she follows and meets expected requirements when responding to any concerns raised. Parents also say their children form positive relationships with staff and highlight the range of activities children enjoy.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• manage the daily routines more consistently to meet children's needs and reduce the noise level, particularly to support children's behaviour and provide a consistently calm environment to promote their learning
• deepen staff's understanding of the learning intentions, to help them challenge children's learning and development and further extend their progress.