Oak Tree Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter this welcoming nursery happily and settle easily on arrival. They respond very positively to the friendly, caring staff. Children move around the play areas confidently and show as content and comfortable in the nursery. Children learn to behave very well. They interact positively with their friends and play cooperatively. They show kindness to others, such as when they pass a cuddly toy to a friend for them to hold. Children get to know the established boundaries that help them feel secure and know what will happen next.

Staff get to know children well and use their knowledge effectively overall to provide a broad curriculum based on children's interests and learning needs. They plan a variety of activities to encourage children's early mark-making skills. For example, babies push cars through brightly coloured paint and make tracks. Toddlers push their hands through shaving foam and look with interest at the lines and squiggles they make with their fingers. Pre-school children use chalks to draw lines and circles on the outdoor playground. Children enjoy their play and make good progress overall.

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

• The provider supports staff well to work as a team and continue with their professional development. For example, staff have raised their awareness of activities to provide to promote the younger children's learning. They have also completed leadership training that helps them recognise how they can support each other's practice in different ways.
• Staff promote children's personal development effectively, such as through the established daily routines to support their self-care skills. They help children understand why it is important to wash their hands before eating or after playing outdoors to get rid of any germs. Children develop good independence skills from a young age. Toddlers try hard to do up their coats and put on their boots to go outdoors. Pre-school children know where to store their belongings. Staff encourage children's mobility and provide good opportunities for them to exercise. For example, children like to practise different yoga poses. Toddlers gain confidence standing on a balancing beam. Babies lie comfortably under an activity gym and start to reach up for the colourful toys hanging above them.
• Staff observe and monitor children's progress and identify what they need to learn next. They focus on children's next steps of learning within planned activities and provide them with good support to achieve overall. However, at times, staff do not organise some group activities, such as circle times, to encourage all children's participation as well as possible. For example, most children enjoy singing and they listen to a favourite story. Staff recognise when children are getting restless and finish the activity. However, they do not fully consider alternative ways to help children stay engaged and sustain all children's attention consistently well.
• Children learn to understand and manage their feelings safely. Staff are consistent in their approach to supporting children's behaviour. They talk with children about their emotions and use related resources, such as stories, to help them learn how to think about their actions and use 'kind hands' with their friends.
• Staff support children's communication well. For example, they reinforce the sounds babies make and repeat words to encourage toddlers to start putting two- and three-word sentences together. Staff ask children questions to extend their vocabulary and help them become confident in using words to describe their ideas. Pre-school children become absorbed mixing shaving foam and paint together and say, 'It feels soft and slimey and is a silver/black colour.' They tell staff they have found a 'special cog' hidden in the sandpit.
• Parents give positive comments about staff. They say their children love going to nursery and staff keep them well informed of their children's daily activities and personal care. Staff share ideas with parents for activities to do at home with their children and provide continuity for children's next steps of learning. However, staff have not considered gathering further information about children's existing developmental skills at registration, for example, to help them plan activities that are more focused on supporting children's individual learning right from the start.
• Children begin to develop their imaginations well within their play. Pre-school children like to mix sand into a pot and tell staff they have made a 'cranberry sorbet'. They cuddle their dolls and tuck them up in a cot. Toddlers like to act out experiences they have seen and help staff sweep the floor using a small broom.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's awareness of ways to adapt their teaching and the organisation of group activities to help all children stay focused and engaged consistently well
• gather more information from parents at registration to enable staff to plan activities more securely based on children's existing skills and starting points on entry.