Playdays 4 Kidz C.I.C

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy their time at this friendly, welcoming setting. They benefit from warm interactions from nurturing, caring staff. Babies seek out their key worker for cuddles and reassurance. This helps to develop their confidence and raise their self-esteem. Babies crawl to find their favourite toys and pull themselves up to stand on equipment. Staff encourage them to shake and rattle musical instruments as they sing familiar songs. This sensory experience fascinates babies and promotes their listening skills and concentration.

Children play outdoors every day. Younger children roll and throw small balls to each other. Older children throw bean bags at felt-shaped targets. Staff encourage children to name the shapes as they throw. This helps to develop their coordination and early mathematical skills. Overall, children's behaviour is good. Managers and staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. Children are courteous and say 'please' and 'thank you' without prompting.

Children demonstrate a positive attitude towards their learning as they become fully engrossed in activities. For example, children concentrate as they adjust the height of wooden planks to see how fast they can send bangles and cars down in different ways. Children spend time developing their creative ideas as they explore paint, sand and slime. This helps to develop children's creativity and hand-to-eye coordination.

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

• Staff provide children with a language-rich environment. Children develop their vocabulary by learning new words, such as 'Apatosaurus' and 'Iguanodon'. Staff encourage children to join in with familiar rhymes and songs. Children develop a love of books as staff read familiar stories. Children giggle with delight as they shout 'shark in the park' throughout the story. This helps to develop children's listening and speaking skills.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported very well. Staff refer children swiftly when they need additional support. Children benefit from individual learning plans. Staff collaborate with a wide range of professionals, such as speech and language therapists, social workers and local authority advisers. This helps children to achieve the best possible outcomes.
• Managers are clear about what they intend children to learn. Staff use observations and assessments to find out what children know and can do. They plan exciting activities to support children across all areas of learning. For example, staff support children to learn about numbers and counting during group time. However, at times, children's individual next steps are too broad and do not always focus on what children need to learn next.
• Parents are very complimentary of the setting. They say that they are kept up to date about their children's development, activities and routines. Parents appreciate how supportive the staff team are. They comment that staff are 'amazing'.
• Overall, children's behaviour is good. Children are familiar with what behaviour is expected. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, staff have placed an emphasis on developing the curriculum for children's personal and social development. Staff are good role models and encourage children to share and take turns. However, staff are not always consistent in their approach to managing children's behaviour. For example, not all staff explain the impact of children's negative behaviour on other children.
• Staff support children to learn about festivals, and parents are invited into the nursery to share cultural food and stories with children. Children see positive images of people in books and on posters. Staff teach children about the similarities and differences that make them unique. This helps children to learn about the wider world and the diverse community which they are part of.
• Staff attend regular supervision sessions with the managers. This gives them opportunities to discuss their roles and key children. However, the managers recognise that staff need further opportunities to extend their professional development, to help raise the quality of education in the setting.
• Staff support children to learn about being healthy. For example, children know that they must wash their hands before eating. They get to try a variety of fruits and vegetables at snack time. Staff provide a healthy lunch for children and discuss the benefits of eating healthily. Staff talk to children and parents about the importance of oral health.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance the planning for children's next steps in learning to ensure that they are more finely tuned to suit the individual needs of each child
• support staff to teach children the impact that their unwanted behaviour has on themselves and others
• focus on professional development opportunities to raise the quality of practice.