Nanny Bears Childcare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children form secure and trusting bonds with staff, who support them well as they transition through the nursery. Consequently, children are happy and settled. They enter the nursery enthusiastically and engage in play and learning immediately. Staff manage transitions well to ensure that children are ready emotionally and developmentally before they move up to the next room in the nursery. There is a well-thought-out curriculum, based on children's interests and next steps in learning. Staff use this successfully to prepare children for their future learning, including school. There is a strong focus on building children's confidence and independence, to help them become resilient and sociable.

Staff help children to respect behaviour boundaries and develop positive attitudes to learning. The key-person system is a particular strength across the nursery. This helps staff to get to know the children well and children settle quickly and have the confidence to explore their environment.

There are extremely strong partnerships in place with parents and carers. Parents are overwhelmingly happy with the progress their children make. They are kept up to date and value the excellent communication, including bi-monthly parents' evenings. At these meetings,they find out about what their children have been learning and get ideas of how to support their children's learning at home.

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

• Children of all ages develop a love of books and stories. Staff bring stories to life as they read, using different tones of voice and facial expressions to help children understand the character's emotions. This captures children's attention and interest, developing their listening and speaking skills successfully.
• Staff provide children with many opportunities to play outdoors and explore the on-site facilities around the farm. Children benefit from daily fresh air and exercise. They take part in yoga, demonstrating challenging poses before placing their hands together and saying 'namaste' altogether. This helps children's balance, strength and endurance. It helps them to be calm, concentrate and focus.
• Staff engage children in lively conversation as they enjoy exploring the sand, filling different sized containers. This develops children's understanding of quantity, comparison and measurement. They count how many scoops or spoonfuls of sand it takes to fill a container and compare the size of different objects. This supports children's early mathematical development.
• Children use their imagination well. They pretend to cook meals in the mud kitchen and talk to one another about making cupcakes. They explore and develop their play as they add more water to the mud and pretend to grate cheese. Children learn that there are different purposes for writing, such as showing an interest in recipes for a 'conker cake' or an 'acorn crumble'.
• Staff encourage children to listen well and introduce words to widen children's vocabulary. Overall, children understand and communicate their thoughts, needs and ideas. Occasionally, staff do not ask key questions or make the most of spontaneous opportunities to enhance children's learning as much as they could.
• Staff promote children's behaviour well. From a young age, children learn to be kind, share and take turns. Staff recognise when children need help to manage disputes or when they are feeling sad and skilfully come alongside children to help them resolve issues for themselves. Staff use praise effectively to support children's good self-esteem. For example, they say 'good teamwork' as the children help to carry the sand cover across the garden.
• Staff support children well to develop a good understanding of healthy lifestyles. They follow thorough hygiene routines, understanding the importance of good handwashing and the reasons why. They enjoy a broad and varied vegetarian diet provided by the nursery and engage in conversation with staff about healthy eating.
• The provider and staff are reflective practitioners. They successfully evaluate what they are doing well and consistently look at ways to improve to further benefit the children and families that attend.
• There is a strong emphasis placed on staff's well-being. As a result, staff are extremely happy in their work. The team are exceptionally close and feel very well supported to extend their professional development. Consequently, there is a happy and nurturing environment, which has a positive impact on children's well-being and learning outcomes.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to develop their questioning techniques further to consistently engage children in discussion and support them to share their thoughts and experiences.