Millers Dene Day Care

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are very happy in this warm, welcoming nursery. They arrive happily and separate well from their parents. New children attending are given plenty of cuddles and comfort. This positively enhances their emotional well-being and helps them to settle quickly. Babies receive loving and affectionate care from staff, who sensitively look after them and respond to their needs well. Babies shriek with delight as they engage in body painting and splash in the water. They develop important physical skills as they learn to balance as they create footprints on the floor and then clamber into the paddling pool. Older children enjoy using their imagination and recreate known, familiar experiences. They pretend to feed the dolls and carefully lay them in the cot for a nap. They organise the chairs side by side and tell their friends it is a car and they are going to the shops.

Children thoroughly enjoy sensory experiences, such as exploring a mixture of cornflour and water. They run their hands through the mixture and then raise their hands and see how it runs through their fingers. Staff encourage children to think about how it feels, using words such as 'soft', 'hard' and 'runny'.

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

• Leadership and management are strong. Managers have a clear understanding of what they want children to learn. They plan an interesting curriculum that takes account of the differing ages and abilities of the children.
• Staff know the children well. They find out what children know and can do when they start nursery and gather information from parents about their development. Staff carry out regular, ongoing assessments of children's learning and development. They use this information to plan meaningful experiences to help children make further progress in their development. However, while most staff have a clear understanding of why activities have been planned and how these build on children's existing abilities, some are less sure. This means that although all children enjoy the activities provided, some staff are less sure of how to support children to make the best possible progress.
• Staff promote children's language development well. They use good questioning skills and introduce new vocabulary as they engage children in many discussions throughout the day. Staff working with babies respond well to their early sounds and introduce new words for them to listen to and repeat. Older children and toddlers enjoy sharing books and join in with songs as they help to tidy up and wash their hands.
• Staff provide good support for children with additional needs. They are alert to delays in children's development and are confident in sensitively discussing these with parents. As a result, they are able to provide targeted support for children and liaise with other professionals where necessary. This helps all children to reach their potential.
• Children have a positive attitude towards their learning. They benefit from a range of exciting opportunities. For example, they visit the stables to feed the horses and enjoy trips to the pet shop. This helps to broaden children's understanding of the community around them. Children behave well. Staff help them to learn the importance of sharing and taking turns as they play. They are positive role models and praise children throughout the day, recognising their good behaviour.
• Staff receive supervision and training. This helps them to fully understand their roles and responsibilities in order to promote the interests of all children. Managers are confident in observing practice and are able to identify areas to further improve teaching. However, the impact of supervision is not yet fully effective in raising the quality of teaching consistently to the highest possible level.
• Parents are very happy with the service provided for the children. They look forward to hearing about the children's day and the new skills that they are developing. Parents and staff have daily discussions. Parents also receive a wealth of information through an online app used within nursery, which tells them about the different activities that children enjoy, their progress and development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen all staff's understanding of the learning intention for planned activities, to enable them to shape activities more precisely to the learning needs of children
• enhance further the individual support, coaching and professional development opportunities for all staff to raise the quality of teaching consistently to the highest level.