Peter Pan Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time at this nurturing nursery. They have good relationships with the caring staff, who welcome them warmly into the nursery. This helps children to feel safe and secure, and they develop their confidence well. Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and, as such, behaviour is excellent. Children are polite, kind and care for each other. They enjoy engaging with their peers in play, sharing resources and ideas. Children enjoy a range of activities that capture their needs and interests. This helps all children make good progress from their starting points.

Opportunities for children to develop their communication and speaking skills are excellent. Staff read a range of stories and sing songs with children that excite them. For example, babies cheer and smile in delight as they dance to familiar nursery rhymes and join in with the actions. There is a range of opportunities for children to develop their physical skills. For example, in the outdoor area, children ride on bicycles, pour water through pipes on a water wall and dig in sand. Children benefit from a range of extra opportunities the nursery offers. For example, they watch chicks hatch and grow, pick their own pumpkins and enjoy trips to local farms and supermarkets.

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

• The manager and staff plan a well-sequenced and ambitious curriculum. Staff are attuned to children's needs and interests and plan activities that engage and motivate them. Activities are planned to build on children's prior knowledge and skills and address emerging gaps in learning. This means that children make consistently good progress.
• Staff consult parents when children start the nursery to find out what they can do. Once settled into the nursery, staff assess children effectively to find out what children know and can do and what they need to learn next.
• The manager places a high priority on promoting good values. Children use good manners, share and take turns. They are supported to respect each other's views and opinions. Children learn about similarities and differences and celebrate a range of cultural festivals. They also learn about different family make ups.
• Children develop their imaginative skills well. There is a wide range of role play resources for children to access, which stimulates their imagination and supports their learning and development. For example, children look after dolls; they push them in a pushchair and pretend to make them feel better with doctor's kits.
• Staff provide children with a range of exciting activities that capture their interests and engage them in purposeful play at all times. For example, babies enjoy finding toys hidden in shredded paper and glitter, laughing together as they throw the shredded paper up in the air.
• The manager understands the importance of supporting children to develop their independence. However, opportunities for this are not always consistent across the setting. This means that children are not always provided with the chance to practise their independent skills across a range of contexts.
• Key persons know their children well. They build effective partnerships with parents. Key persons communicate among the staff team so that all members of staff have a thorough understanding of each child's individual needs. This means that children's needs are consistently met across the nursery.
• Parents speak highly of the setting and praise the support the manager and staff give children and families. They say they receive regular communication about what their child is currently learning. However, some parents are not fully aware of children's next steps for learning. This means that learning cannot always be continued and further extended at home.
• The manager is highly reflective and understands the importance of staff training. She ensures staff participate in a wide range of courses that enable her staff team to continually enhance their knowledge and skills. The manager ensures the training staff attend is passed on to the whole team so that it has the highest impact across the nursery.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to further build on opportunities for children to develop and practise their independence across a range of contexts
• continue to build on arrangements to share information with parents about their child's development to help parents further support this learning at home.