Poppins Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children in this nursery are immersed in a loving, homely environment where they are supported by an inspirational team of staff. Staff create a warm and welcoming ethos for children, where they feel safe and develop secure attachments with their key person. Children behave exceptionally well because staff are conscientious and consistently role model how to share and be kind to one another. Older children support their younger friends while washing their hands and sit together at lunchtime to role model how to serve their food and eat with cutlery. Staff sit with children at mealtimes, engaging in rich communication about the healthy food that they are eating and encouraging them to be independent. Children serve their own food, counting potatoes as they scoop them onto their plate and wait patiently until everyone is ready to start eating.

Children in this nursery make rapid progress from their starting points. Staff have high expectations of all children. The manager goes above and beyond to create enriching experiences for children that widen their understanding of the world around them. They regularly visit the local nursing home and take part in physical activities with the residents. Children show the residents how to balance beanbags on their heads and pass them to each other. They play familiar music for the residents, and children discover music from a different era.

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

• The inspirational manager has worked with staff to create a stimulating curriculum. The layout of the setting has been meticulously planned by the passionate team. They provide exciting provocations that encourage children to explore and experiment. Staff support children to be curious learners. They make predictions and explore what happens when they mix colours and discover how to use pipettes to collect and transport liquids.
• Communication and language development is highly effective in the nursery as staff nurture relationships and confidence in children. Staff have attended specialist training in sign language. This helps them to support early communication for all children, especially for children who speak English as an additional language who make exceptional progress. Children engage in rhymes and songs, where they practice signing while singing, and use signing to say please and thank you at mealtimes.
• The staff have developed highly effective systems for assessment. They work closely with parents to create a baseline assessment of children and conduct regular summative assessments of children's progress. The attentive staff skilfully observe children and offer enrichments that stem from their interests. Effective assessment procedures support staff to recognise when a child requires intervention. Staff respond immediately if a child does not make expected progress. They liaise with parents and signpost children to appropriate agencies for support.
• Physical development is one of the priorities identified by the staff and manager. Children thrive on opportunities to develop strength and stability through whole-body movements. Staff support this through interactive story times where they practice whole-body actions as they move through the rhythm of the story. Children's excitement builds as they run and climb through the journey of their imagination. Children learn to manage risks as they climb the tree and build core strength when they practice yoga in the garden.
• Children receive outstanding care routines that support strong relationships between children and their key person. Babies and younger children benefit from personalised care routines. Staff sing familiar rhymes with children, and they feel secure in a familiar routine. The experienced staff follow children's individual sleep patterns and allow them to decide where they would like to sleep.
• The supportive manager and staff have created excellent partnerships with parents. They take time to provide detailed information about children for their parents and carers as they collect them from nursery. The inspirational nursery manager proudly celebrates the unique homely nature of the setting with parents as they step in for a tour of the setting. Parents feel that staff work harmoniously in partnerships with them to support children's development and prepare them for their move on to school.
• The nursery offers a distinctive culture of nurture to help children and staff flourish. Staff feel valued by the caring manager. The manager uses staff's strengths to drive improvement in the nursery. She empowers staff to take the lead in particular curriculum areas. For example. cooking sessions where children practice weighing, mixing and reading instructions. They strengthen the muscles in their hands as they squeeze and twist dough into shapes. The manager has created an ethos of continuous professional development among staff. She has a strong supervision schedule in place to reflect on practice and develop teaching further.