Moorlands Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children of all ages enjoy days of excitement and challenge in this caring and nurturing nursery environment. Babies independently explore their environment and giggle when they see themselves in mirrors. Motivated by the encouragement from staff, they are starting to crawl and stand with some support. Toddlers act out tea parties with dolls while others use their imagination to create pretend food from dough. Older children select books and make early attempts at reading, while others concentrate well during craft activities. Children have lots of fun outside as they whizz around at speed on wheeled toys, which they manoeuvre with great skill. All children demonstrate they feel safe in the nursery. They confidently approach their familiar adults for comfort or speak to them about how they are feeling. Children follow the rules of the nursery. As a result they are developing a sense of right and wrong and are respectful to others.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nursery is providing children with even greater support in relation to communication and language development, and social and emotional development.

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

• All staff sing and read to children frequently, which helps support children's developing speech and vocabulary. Babies, who are just beginning to speak, happily babble along as staff sing to them. Toddlers who are starting to form words make good attempts to join in with familiar nursery rhymes. Older children sit engrossed as staff enthusiastically read books to them. They are keen to contribute by recalling the next part of the story. Children laugh and shout out, 'they've got big knickers on', as they see in the pictures in books they find amusing. However, some staff mispronounce words and use incorrect tense or grammatical terms. This hinders the otherwise good support for children's developing communication.
• Leaders have worked hard to help staff improve their confidence in teaching children early mathematical concepts. Staff naturally count out loud the pieces of fruit that babies eat and sing songs about numbers. Those staff working with older children help them to recognise the numerals that represent numbers. Concepts such as more and less are also introduced. Children understand how numbers can be represented in different forms, such as physical items or dot patterns. From baby room to pre-school, children demonstrate the firm foundations needed in number for other mathematical concepts.
• Children have lots of independent choice. They select the books and learning resources they want to use and staff build learning experiences around these interests. Children are familiar with routines. They tidy up or wash their hands with little prompting. However, staff working with older children do not always give them the chance to do things independently that they may be capable of. For example, staff pour drinks and serve meals for children. At other times, staff are too quick to help children take off or put on their shoes. This means that children are not as well prepared as they could be for their eventual move to school.
• Staff talk positively about the strong team ethos in the nursery and how everyone works together for the best outcomes for children. Staff receive regular supervision meetings from leaders to ensure their own well-being is supported. Staff also access any training needed to maintain the good quality education provided to children.
• Since the previous inspection, leaders have made improvements in parent partnerships. Staff share information with parents electronically, which gives an insight into how children are progressing in their development. This is complemented by detailed daily verbal discussions when children are collected. Staff also share ideas of how to extend children's learning at home. As a result, partnerships with parents are a strength.
• Leaders and staff work closely with other agencies to ensure that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive the support they need. Staff know their children exceptionally well and sensitively plan activities that really focus in on what children need to learn at that moment. This results in meaningful learning taking place for children with SEND on a daily basis.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• continue to develop staff practice so that correct speech is consistently modelled to children
• enhance opportunities for children to embed their independence skills.