Oxford Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at this welcoming, secure setting happy and eager to learn. Staff are warm, friendly and form positive relationships with them. Children interact confidently with staff and express themselves assertively. Staff successfully teach children about how to behave with others. They act as good role models as they interact with children. For example, when joining an activity, they ask children if they can join in, demonstrating good social etiquette. Children behave well and are kind and respectful to others.

The manager has a clear curriculum intent, which is ambitious for all children who attend. She knows what she wants the children in the setting to learn and why. She has a strong focus on developing children's communication, social skills and independence to help prepare them for their move to school. Overall, staff teach children well to help them achieve the skills they need for their future learning. For instance, they teach children to do things for themselves, such as to put on their own coat. Most staff are skilled at supporting children to practise and use language in their play to help extend their language development. Staff plan interesting activities for children to help engage and excite them. Children are keen to join in and explore. They visibly enjoy their time at the setting.

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

• Staff assess children's abilities well and know how to support children to achieve the next steps in their development. Leaders and staff successfully recognise any delays in children's learning and adapt their practice well to help boost children's progress. They work well with other professionals, such as speech and language therapists, to gain further support for children who require it.
• Overall, staff provide a good education for children and implement the curriculum for their learning effectively. Most staff focus well on supporting children's communication and language and their social and personal development. All children make good progress. However, at times, staff's interactions are not consistently of high quality to help children build on and consolidate their skills even further.
• Children are confident communicators. Older children are articulate and express their needs clearly. Overall, staff support children well to develop their speech and language. For instance, they model the use of words and sentences to help children use them in context. Children develop their vocabulary well.
• Staff plan good opportunities for children to be active and develop their physical skills. They help children to learn to move their bodies in different ways, such as while dancing to music. Children develop their muscles and balance well. Children also eat healthy and nutritious food at mealtimes and develop an understanding of healthy lifestyles.
• Partnership with parents is a great strength. Staff work with parents very well and communicate with them effectively about their children's development. They also offer advice to parents about how they can support their children's development at home to help provide consistency in what they all teach.
• The manager supports staff well with their ongoing professional development overall. She monitors staff's practice and recognises areas where staff can improve their teaching. She provides staff with training opportunities to help extend their expertise further.
• Children show they are responsible and are keen to help during their time at the setting. For example, they help to tidy up any mess from their play to help keep the environment clean. However, staff are not always consistent in helping younger children to know how to use resources safely. For instance, they do not help children to understand where and how to use some resources so staff are able to provide ongoing supervision and guidance to children who need it.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's delivery of the curriculum so they provide consistently high-quality learning experiences for children to enhance the quality of their education even further
• extend children's understanding of how to use resources appropriately and safely to further support their personal development.