Partou Little Stars Day Nursery & Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are welcoming, caring and responsive to children and their families. They spend time with the children and parents before children start to attend, to make sure the children are familiar with staff and the environment. Children have especially warm relationships with their key person. They settle well and show they have developed trust in their key person when they approach them for reassurance. Children rarely display any unwanted behaviour because they are busy and engaged in play. Staff are consistent across the nursery in how they react to any behaviour that is not appropriate. They are calm and use soft voices to talk to the children about what has happened and how their actions might affect other children.

Staff create an indoor environment that is designed to attract and engage children's attention. Staff understand how children learn and what they need to develop at different stages. For example, babies have space to walk or crawl around and staff place interesting objects out of reach to encourage their movement and increase their hand-to-eye coordination. Older children relish play with a wide range of interesting items linked to a theme of Halloween. They use their imagination to create games to play using the items, and discuss differences. When staff skilfully join the conversation, they extend children's involvement and talk about their home experiences of Halloween.

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

• Leaders and staff have developed a curriculum for the nursery that suits the children who attend. Staff follow the curriculum well in the nursery rooms. They can clearly explain what they want children to learn and how they are promoting this through the resources and their teaching. They are largely less confident about how to deliver the curriculum outdoors. Children do learn and experience new things when outdoors, such as language around autumn leaves. However, this learning is incidental and happens if staff notice that a child is interested in something, such as using a tricycle that they need support with.
• There is a strong focus on children's communication and language development, which is seen clearly through staff interactions with children throughout the nursery. Staff know how to adapt their communication with children so that children build their knowledge of language and communication as they move through the nursery. Staff respond to babies' babbles and use single words, such as 'hop', repeatedly. Toddlers are introduced to simple, short sentences and older children hear and can use full sentences that include description.
• Staff observe and assess children's learning and development regularly. They use all of the information they have about children to successfully identify any emerging concerns about a child's development. They work very closely with parents and other professionals involved with the children to make sure that any specific activities or strategies needed are put in place. Staff are not as rigorous when they complete the information for parents on the progress check for children aged between two and three years, in terms of what it is that children specifically need support with at the time of the assessment.
• Parents notice the progress that their children make after they start attending the nursery. They explain that their children talk about subjects that they have not discussed at home, and credit the nursery with this. Parents receive good-quality information about their child's development through discussions with staff and via an app used by the nursery to record progress information, next steps and photos of children as they play.
• Staff support children well to join in and become engrossed in their learning. When children are not interested in the resources or activities that staff have provided, staff notice this and provide alternatives that match the interest of the children while also meeting their learning needs. In doing this, staff are able to re-engage children with their play so that they can develop their levels of concentration and desire to explore and investigate.
• Staff help children to understand and value how people are different. For example, they talk about why some children have different foods and how people are different in many ways. Staff value each child. They help children to understand how they are special, praise them for their successes and perseverance, and treat them with respect.
• There is a strong management structure in place within the provider's organisation that effectively supports the nursery manager and staff. Staff are valued and their well-being is a priority for the provider. Staff are supported in their professional development and receive the training they need to be able to do their job well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve the quality of information included for parents on the progress check for children between the ages of two and three years
• increase staff's understanding of how to deliver the curriculum outdoors so that children have purposeful learning throughout the nursery.