Oakhill Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and are greeted with positivity from the warm and welcoming staff team. They leave their parents or carers with ease and are eager to begin their day. Staff show genuine interest in the children and form strong bonds with them. Children settle quickly and confidently access the resources that are available to them.

Children are free to choose from a wide range of activities, indoors and outdoors. The nursery curriculum offers children challenge and stimulates their interests. Children are excited and motivated to learn. Children show this as they rush outside to begin their 'Gruffalo' hunt. They collect leaves, twigs and stones to make a 'Gruffalo crumble' in the mud kitchen. Staff extend children's learning and challenge them to describe the sounds they can hear as they 'crunch' the leaves beneath their feet. All children make good progress.

Children's behaviour is good. Staff value each child and have high expectations of them. Children have a clear understanding of boundaries and treat each other with respect and kindness. Staff help children to learn about their emotions. For instance, children have opportunities to discuss their feelings and enjoy group time with the 'worry monster'. This helps to promote children's overall well-being.

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

• The new manager and leaders are passionate, reflective and committed to the continuous improvement of the nursery. Staff feel supported in their work and their well-being is given high priority. The manager ensures staff complete all mandatory training. She has plans to extend training opportunities further to help staff build on their current good teaching skills. Furthermore, the manager intends to embed arrangements for staff supervisions. This will help to swiftly identify and address any minor weaknesses in teaching.
• Children learn about good hygiene routines. Staff encourage children to wash their hands and use the toilet independently as part of their daily routine. This is evident when children sing songs about washing their hands and explain they need to wash the germs away. The manager has recently introduced a 'snuffle station' that is equipped with tissues, hand gel and a bin. Furthermore, a toothbrushing programme has been implemented to promote children's understanding of oral health. Children sit with a mirror and timer each day and practise brushing their teeth. This helps them to understand the importance of personal hygiene.
• Staff gather information from parents when children first start about what they already know and can do. Staff use this information alongside their own observations and assessment to plan themes and ideas based on children's interests and next steps. For example, children enjoy learning about the winter. Staff challenge them to speak about the weather and what clothing they may need to wear to go outside. Older children are challenged to count the number of snow balls they can see in the snowman tough tray.
• Staff support children's communication and language skills well. Children are provided with a language-rich environment. Staff use a lot of language opportunities to extend and develop children's vocabulary, including words of the week and sign language. Children hear songs, rhymes and stories each day to help build on their vocabulary. This helps children to become good communicators from a very early age.
• Partnership with parents is a real strength of this nursery. Staff share regular information and photos with parents using an online app. They have daily discussions with parents at drop-off and collection times. Parents are full of praise for the education and care their children receive. They enjoy using the lending library to share books at home with their children and compliment the support they receive for the whole family.
• Overall, there is an effective key-person system is in place. Key persons know their children well. They spend quality time with them to establish secure relationships and help them to feel safe and secure. However, children's individual next steps are not always effectively shared with other staff members. As a result, in the absence of the key person, other staff are not always clear how to support children's individual learning and development needs.
• Staff support children to gain their independence from a very young age. Children learn to pour their own drinks and serve their own food at snack and mealtimes. They learn to put their own coats and boots on ready to play outside. Children show high levels of motivation as they independently choose what they would like to play with. For example, children decide to set up a picnic in the room. Staff lay out a blanket on the floor and children begin to set it up with play food.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• embed the improved arrangements for staff supervision, training and development to ensure consistently high-quality teaching for children
• build on existing strategies to strengthen staff knowledge of children's next steps to ensure they continue to make progress in the absence of their key person.