Nuffy Bear Day Nursery - Sunbury

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show increasing levels of independence, confidence and resilience at this welcoming and friendly nursery. They quickly form trusting bonds with their key person and other staff. If new children become a little upset, staff swiftly offer reassurance to help them feel calm and more settled. Children happily welcome new visitors and keenly share what they are doing. For example, toddlers dress up in dinosaur costumes and proudly show off their roaring skills. Pre-school children add tunnels over a rail track by using foam bricks and eagerly demonstrate how their trains pass through. Praise is plentiful. Staff readily commend children's efforts and achievements. In this way, children develop increasing levels of self-worth.

Daily outdoor experiences provide children with opportunities to practise, develop and refine their coordination in physical fitness. Babies learn to stand and balance on stepping stones, under the watchful eye of staff. Older children gain good spatial awareness as they negotiate tight spaces, navigating around obstacles on tricycles. Being active in the garden and enjoying the fresh air, also enhances children's emotional well-being.

Leaders and staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. As good role models, they assist children to show care and consideration. Older children, in particular, mimic these good qualities well. For example, when some children are in need of more water to extend their play, others recognise this and pour their cups of water into their friend's containers. Acts of kindness, such as these, help to create a mutually respectful environment.

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

• An ethos of raising children's awareness to adopt a healthy lifestyle, shines through at this setting. This forms the basis of the ambitious curriculum on offer. Staff encourage children to follow good hygiene routines, such as washing hands before mealtimes and recognising when to wipe their own noses with tissues. Staff offer a 'rolling' snack and lunch arrangement, where children make their own decisions about when they would like to eat. Children learn about healthy and unhealthy food choices and the impact these may have on their bodies. In addition, leaders organise extra-curricular opportunities, run by external professionals, such as music and movement sessions, to help improve children's agility and vocabulary.
• The appealing range of sensory based activities ignites children's natural curiosity. Younger children explore various mixtures to dip their toy animals into, to make footprints. Older children demonstrate great imagination when making pretend fruit drinks with real ingredients, such as limes, oranges and lemons. They expand their learning by considering additional ingredients. Children challenge themselves and make games with resources they have to hand. For instance, they thread cereal hoops on strands of dry spaghetti and count how many fill the whole length. Children show they are becoming competent learners.
• Leaders and staff recognise the importance of promoting children's communication and language skills. Through their interactions, staff provide a running dialogue and repeat key words in context to raise younger children's new vocabulary. When the learning environment is favourable, staff hold sustained and interesting conversations with older children. However, there are times when staff do not readily recognise or effectively manage the environmental conditions for best learning to take place, such as the significantly raised noise levels indoors. Consequently, this makes it hard for children to hear when staff model language, as well as begin to apply this language to make more informed responses. On these occasions, staff are not always effectively delivering the intended learning.
• The provider strives to provide a high standard of education and care. They demonstrate a keen commitment to continually drive improvement. For instance, they have recently extended their garden area and purchased resources to enhance children's outdoor play even further. Regular meetings as individuals or as a whole team enable staff to consider their professional development and career progression. Leaders observe staff's practice and provide constructive feedback on areas needing further improvements. For the most part, teaching is good across the provision. However, leaders do not monitor all staff's practice robustly enough to ensure the best possible impact on children's learning.
• Partnerships with parents are trusted, strong and effective. Leaders have worked tirelessly to build on their previous service to parents, such as using an online application system. Staff gather detailed information about each child at the start, which helps to inform the curriculum and their planning. They provide suggestions for parents to carry on with learning at home with their children. This promotes children's continuous development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to review and improve the organisation of some routine activities, ensuring factors such as excessive noise are minimised
• monitor individual staff's practice even more closely and provide them with a stronger personalised professional development programme.