Park School Day Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and settle quickly into their play. When babies are new to the setting, staff offer lots of cuddles and reassurance to help them feel safe and secure. Children embrace the opportunities for learning that staff provide indoors and outdoors. The atmosphere buzzes with children's excitement and eagerness to explore. For example, children work together to build a tower with bricks in the garden. They take turns adding a brick onto the tower as staff help them count each brick. When the tower falls, children cheer and quickly start to rebuild. Staff encourage them to beat the number of bricks last counted before the tower fell. They offer lots of encouragement as they say, 'Let's go again.'

The enthusiastic and dedicated management team has a clear ambition for all children to succeed. Staff provide children with challenging and motivating activities and experiences. For example, children take part in a painting activity. Staff purposefully plan for children to mix the paints to create the colours of the flowers on the table. Children talk about how they can mix red and yellow to make orange. Children jump up in delight as they create the same colour as the hot marigold flower. Staff encourage them to show their friends and explain how they did it.

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

• The management team is reflective and evaluates the ongoing performance of the nursery. Staff attend regular supervision sessions to discuss and share key information. The manager ensures that staff access ongoing, meaningful training to keep their skills and knowledge up to date. Self-evaluation is accurate and has a positive impact on outcomes for children. For example, leaders improved the outdoor space to add a den set out with storybooks to enable children to access books. Staff report they feel well supported and valued and enjoy working at the nursery.
• Staff strive to support children to be independent from an early age. Children learn to go to the toilet and manage their care needs. Older children serve themselves meals. Staff support children to make choices during their play and persevere when completing tasks. The independent skills children develop ensure they are ready for their move to school.
• Overall, the curriculum for children's communication and language development is good. Staff use singing, action rhymes and stories as part of everyday practice to support children's language development. Older children develop a wide range of vocabulary as staff encourage them to describe objects and introduce new words, such as 'delicate'. However, babies and younger children are not always consistently supported to build on the range of words they know or to practise using their existing language skills.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are well supported at the nursery. The special educational needs coordinator is passionate about making a difference in children's lives. She works closely with parents, staff and other professionals to support children to make good progress alongside their peers.
• Overall, staff know children well and support their ongoing development by providing a stimulating environment covering all areas of learning. This helps children to make good overall progress. However, staff do not consistently plan activities and the support they provide around children's individual next steps in learning to extend their individual development further.
• Mathematics is firmly embedded and carefully woven into all activities. Staff complete 'maths champion' training and successfully pass the knowledge they acquire on to colleagues. This helps staff to develop their understanding of how they can enhance children's mathematical development. As a result, children learn to count confidently, compare sizes and know when their bottles are full or empty.
• Partnerships with parents are effective. Parents and grandparents explain the nursery is welcoming and very family orientated. All staff gather and share information with parents. Staff keep parents well informed about their children's progress and development. Parents say staff offer a robust settling-in process. The parents of children with SEND feel the nursery has played an integral role in getting their children the support they need to progress in skills and education.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen support for younger children to build on the range of words they know and to practise their language skills
• focus more precisely on the knowledge and skills individual children need to learn next to help them make the best possible progress.