Partou Best Friends Day Nursery & Pre-School

Inclusion: Needs attention

Some children with barriers to their learning and those who speak English as an additional language do not receive consistent support. Staff do not always know the home languages of their key children or how to communicate with them in ways they understand. They do not consistently know how to support children when they are distressed. This has a negative impact on children's emotional wellbeing. Overall, leaders and staff identify children's individual needs swiftly and accurately. They work together to observe children and create individual plans to help them access the curriculum. Leaders and staff monitor plans and adapt them to support children's changing needs and monitor impact.

Staff create and use objects and pictures of reference to help children follow the daily routine. This works well, and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are happy and regulated at the nursery. While there is a sound knowledge and understanding from those leading on SEND practice, this is not yet consistently implemented by those staff working more directly with children. This is due to leaders not fully monitoring the work of all staff and ensuring they have a secure understanding of children's needs and what this means for their practice.

The staff responsible for supporting children with SEND have received additional training to help them implement targeted support for children. However, they have not yet started to share this training with other staff to promote consistency. Staff recognise when children need adaptations to be made to the environment to help them develop new skills. For instance, they remove chairs to create more opportunities for children to stand and walk. Generally, leaders work well with outside agencies and make timely referrals for additional support that children need.

There are currently no children on roll who receive additional funding, such as early years pupil premium. However, leaders have an understanding of how funding would be used to support the learning of the children it is allocated to. They discuss how they would use the funding to narrow gaps in learning, considering children's previous experiences and developmental needs.

Curriculum and teaching: Needs attention

Leaders are ambitious about what they want children to learn. They understand how to plan and design the curriculum. Leaders recognise the weaknesses in how the curriculum is delivered. They have started to take steps to address this, for instance, by providing training. However, these interventions are at an early stage and the impact is not yet seen. Staff do not always demonstrate a secure understanding of how children learn across all areas of learning. There are considerable inconsistencies in the quality of interactions and how the curriculum is tailored to children's individual needs. Staff do not teach mathematical knowledge and understanding explicitly. Children are not supported to develop some of the key skills and knowledge needed for the next stage in their learning.

Staff promote children's communication and language development effectively. Some staff use visual aids to help children with special educational needs and/or disabilities understand the routine. They babble along with babies, using single words to help build their vocabulary. Staff encourage older children to guess which object is in the box by giving clues, such as is the wool 'black' or 'white'. When children guess correctly, staff support them to sing the corresponding song. Staff provide some opportunities for children to explore books. They have a book of the week, such as around helping children to learn about new siblings.

Achievement: Needs attention

Children do not always receive support to develop skills across all areas of learning. Pre-school children struggle when trying to recite numbers in the correct order and when trying to count groups of objects. They can sometimes recognise familiar numerals, but they do not develop a deep and secure understanding of mathematics. This does not help to prepare children for their move to school.

Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, show physical skills appropriate for their age. They climb steps one foot at a time, balance confidently and ride bicycles. Older children have lovely communication skills. They are keen to talk about the things they do at home, holding back-and-forth conversations about going to the cinema. Some children hold a pencil correctly and make some purposeful marks. They have some skills appropriate to their age and stage of development.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Needs attention

Not all children receive support to form warm and trusting relationships with staff from the start, in particular those who are new and those who speak English as an additional language. Although leaders have appropriate expectations for children's behaviour, they do not ensure that all staff implement these. As such, there are some inconsistencies across the team. Some staff are skilled at dealing with unwanted behaviour. They recognise that some children need more support through validating their emotions and helping them to express how they feel. However, other staff do not have the same level of understanding. They rely heavily on rewards, such as multiple stickers, to encourage children to follow the rules. This creates unclear messages for children. Overall, children typically behave well and play cooperatively with one another.

Leaders have clear procedures in place for monitoring children's attendance. They tackle poor attendance through meetings with parents and carers. They share the impact of children attending regularly on their attainment. Leaders work closely with the local authority to report unexplained absences. They seek welfare checks for children they are concerned about.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Needs attention

The key-person system is not well embedded for all children. Some children are not allocated a specific key person when they first start, which does not help them to settle. Key persons do not always gather pertinent information, such as which languages children speak at home, to help them understand their individual needs. This does not help these children to feel secure. Children in the baby room have a different experience. They have an allocated key person who knows them well. Babies form attachments quickly, and staff have a sound understanding of their individual routines and care practices from the start.

Staff promote children's health well. They instil positive hygiene routines. Staff teach children about the importance of washing their hands before meals and after wiping their noses. They sit with children during mealtimes and talk to them about the impact of healthy food on their bodies. This helps children to learn about some of the different ways to stay healthy. Some staff are skilled at helping children to manage and understand their emotions. They use phrases such as 'I can see you are angry' and 'What makes you feel angry?' when responding to children who are overwhelmed. This helps children to learn and use words to describe how they feel.

The nursery is safe and secure, including procedures for identifying visitors to the nursery. However, the provider previously notified Ofsted of an incident involving a child being left unsupervised within the nursery for a period of time. Leaders have taken appropriate action to help prevent a reoccurrence. For example, they have made changes to the way staff are deployed as children move between indoors and outdoors. This helps to ensure children are well supervised as they move around the nursery.

Leadership and governance: Needs attention

There are still some gaps in staff practice and procedures that have led to breaches of requirements. For example, the procedures for staff supervision are not robust. Not all staff understand what they need to do to improve their skills or how to implement what they learn from training. Consequently, there are considerable variations in the quality of practice. Furthermore, the provider failed to notify Ofsted within the required timescales of a change to the manager of the nursery. This is a breach of legal requirements. However, the impact on children was minimal.

There have been significant changes to leadership and the staff team since the last inspection. This has caused an unsettled period and made implementing changes more difficult for the senior leadership team. However, leaders are committed to bringing about consistency for the staff team and improving the quality of the nursery. Although their improvement plans for the nursery are accurate and well considered, they are still in the early stages. Leaders are mindful of staff wellbeing and work with them to manage their workload.

Leaders have taken some steps to build relationships with parents and carers, but partnership working is not yet effective. Not all parents know who their child's key person is, what their children's next steps in learning are or how they can extend learning at home. Furthermore, staff do not seek information from parents about children's involvement with other agencies. This does not promote continuity in children's care and learning.