Partou Playtime Day Nursery & Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children form strong bonds with staff, who support their emotional well-being effectively. Staff gather information from parents when children first start, which helps them settle quickly. Staff know their key children well. This helps staff to plan what children need to learn next and supports children to achieve and make progress in their development. Children benefit from well-planned transitions, which help them to become ready for the next stage in their learning. This includes moving from one room to the next and when all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), move on to school.

Staff encourage children to make healthy choices at mealtimes. For example, pre-school children recall making healthy smoothies. Children have good opportunities to be physically active, indoors and outside. Babies are encouraged to climb using slides and crawling blocks, with guidance from attentive staff. This helps children learn to manage risks safely.

Overall, staff's practice and teaching are secure. Staff engage in play with children and support their language skills well. They promote children's enjoyment of books and singing songs, which helps to develop their vocabulary. Staff teach children to take turns and to share. Children develop their independence successfully. For example, older children set the table and clear away after lunch.

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

• Leaders and staff provide a curriculum that is well sequenced and reflects each child's unique needs. Staff know their key children's needs well, including those with SEND, and children make sound progress from their starting points. Children's home backgrounds are reflected well, including other languages they hear or speak at home. This helps children to feel valued. Staff plan opportunities that include role play and puppets to help children learn about other cultures and the roles of people in society, such as the police.
• The effective key-person system provides children with the individual care they need. For example, staff are attentive to tired babies who need a cuddle. This helps children to feel safe and promotes positive relationships.
• Leaders have a good oversight of the provision. They support staff well in their professional development and well-being. Overall, leaders identify the strengths of staff's practice and the quality of the provision securely and work towards making improvements. They share feedback regularly with staff to help support them.
• Staff organise each room effectively to support all areas of learning. For example, staff provide an exciting range of resources in the baby room, which promotes their confident exploration. Staff promote children's language skills well. They encourage children to develop a strong interest in books and explore these with them. Staff introduce new words, such as shiny. This helps to increase children's understanding of new words and builds on their vocabulary.
• Overall, staff use effective strategies to help children manage their behaviour. For example, they have a 'zen den' area for children to use when they are struggling to manage their feelings. However, staff are not fully consistent in identifying and responding to children's needs when children need support with their behaviour. This means that children sometimes do not fully strengthen their understanding of the expectations for behaviour.
• Staff follow clear procedures for the safe handling of children's dietary requirements and promote good oral health practices. Staff ensure children wash their hands regularly. At times, staff are not aware of minor hygiene issues, which means they sometimes do not guide children's knowledge of taking care of themselves and others. For instance, children sometimes dropped cutlery on the floor and reused it.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. They feed back positively about the care their children receive. Information shared between home and the nursery is used effectively by staff to support children's learning. Staff encourage children's learning at home, including through sharing with parents their children's next steps in learning and encouraging reading at home through the nursery's lending library.
• Leaders seek support from other professionals to help meet children's individual needs. Staff provide activities that support children's needs, such as 'bucket time'. Leaders use additional funding well to support one-to-one care.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build staff's awareness to help them consistently recognise and respond to children who need support to manage their own behaviour
• support staff to provide clearer messages around good hygiene practices to further strengthen children's understanding about taking care of their bodies.