Oaklea House Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children develop strong attachments with adults. Young toddlers appear relaxed and happy and show curiosity to explore. Very young children learn to communicate without their dummies. Babies look intently at adults who carefully model the sounds of words. This helps them to develop early speech sounds. Nurturing support from trusted adults supports older children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to develop their confidence to talk.

Children are happy and engage well in the interesting and carefully planned activities provided. There are opportunities for children of all ages to develop creative skills through paint, construction, crafts and clay modelling. Staff talk to children about their artwork. Children's work is prominently displayed throughout the nursery. This helps children to celebrate their achievements.

Children help and support each other. Pre-school staff skilfully support children to show their peers how to use their knife and fork. Children learn to congratulate each other. For example, children positively comment when their peers count correctly or recite the first letters of the alphabet in order. Kind and caring staff help children to see the value in being respectful to others. This supports children to develop good behaviour and social skills.

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

• Leaders and staff create a positive environment in which children settle and enthusiastically take part in interesting activities. Staff encourage children to learn and play with their peers. They give warm and responsive encouragement for children who need additional support in social situations. This helps all children contribute to the activities and supports less-confident children to feel part of a group.
• Leaders understand how to plan a coherent and well-sequenced curriculum that builds over time on what children know and can do. However, despite correctly identifying some areas for development, leaders do not monitor precisely enough to ensure that all staff understand the learning intention of the planned activities that sit within the curriculum. In addition, leaders do not target support for staff who are less effective at adapting activities to add further challenge. Consequently, although all staff support children to enjoy their learning, some staff are less successful at promoting the planned learning intentions and extending children's knowledge.
• Staff consistently teach self-help skills to children, appropriate to their stage of development. For example, babies are encouraged to use their fingers to grasp and eat fruit. Young toddlers scoop and pierce food using cutlery. Older toddlers learn to self-register on arrival by clipping a peg to their name and photo.
• Children in the pre-school fetch their own puddings and clear their own plates. Over time, staff help children to master important independence skills ready for their transition to school.
• Parent partnerships are excellent. Staff listen and respond to parents on a daily basis. Staff closely follow parental preferences for sleeping and toileting routines. Leaders have worked hard to understand what parents want. They carefully analyse feedback from parent questionnaires and clearly communicate to parents how they intend to further develop the provision. As a result, families praise the high-quality relationships between staff and parents and say this has played an important part in helping their children progress.
• There is strong support for children with SEND and children who speak English as an additional language. Passionate staff work very well with specialist professionals to create resources that develop the communication and language of children with SEND. This has helped these children make good progress in their social confidence and communication. Families of children with SEND feel extremely well supported by staff. In addition, funding for individual children with SEND has been spent well to support their physical development.
• Key persons have a good understanding of their children's interests. They use this knowledge to creatively plan activities that hold children's attention. For instance, staff motivate children who love cars to paint using tyre tracks. In addition, key persons frequently set next steps for children's development. Staff often ask for input from parents and specialist agencies when reviewing the progress of each child. This helps staff to plan for children's future progress.
• Leaders and staff frequently promote healthy eating. Nutritious food is freshly cooked every day on site. Staff review and change menus every six months to ensure a range of dishes are offered. Children and parents comment positively on the food that is served. Staff have also created a recipe book for parents who want to cook some of the more popular meals for their children and continue the support for healthy eating at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• monitor and support the staff team more precisely to promote greater consistency in the implementation of planned activities and interaction with children during their freely chosen play.