Portslade Day Nursery and Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children and families receive a warm welcome upon arrival at the nursery and children settle promptly, becoming engrossed in their play. Babies thoroughly enjoy water play outdoors and show immense skill in carrying their water jugs to the water-play system. Staff use simple signing to help babies learn to communicate what they would like, such as more water. Babies remain fully engaged in their chosen activities and concentrate for good periods. Babies learn to recognise their own belongings through effective guidance and support from staff. Babies use simple signing to show good manners, such as saying 'please' and staff offer well-deserved praise for their actions. This builds children's levels of confidence and self-esteem.

Children learn that they have a voice from a very young age and that staff value their input and opinions. This enables children to learn about their needs and those of others and about tolerance and respect. Toddlers show their interest in cause- and-effect resources. They squeal with delight as the crocodile snaps its mouth closed as they press his teeth. Toddlers enjoy learning to blow bubbles and staff extend this, linking it to a favourite action rhyme. This helps support children's facial development and recall of the words of songs.

Pre-school children enjoy their immersive experience of story times. For instance, they use play figures to re-enact the story where they go on a bear hunt. Staff extend this experience, weaving in discussions about how the characters in the story may feel. These interactions maintain children's interest, while extending their knowledge. Pre-school children learn what happens when they mix differing colours of paint together. Staff encourage children to predict and experiment and then challenge children's learning further. Staff readily implement the managers' intention for the curriculum. They use age-appropriate language in conversations with children and help them to learn new words to enhance their early communication development.

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

• Leaders have secure intentions for what they know children of all ages need to learn next. They devise a clearly sequenced curriculum, which is ambitious for all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. This enables children to make the progress that they are capable of.
• Staff are calm, caring and show an in-depth understanding of children's individual care and learning needs. However, they do not always ensure that what they want children to learn from the activity or experience is always fully clear. This means that they do not always plan successfully for these activities, to further enhance children's learning.
• Leaders have a clear vision for ongoing development. They effectively target aspects for improvement and understand how best to support their staffing team to guide them. Leaders work successfully with other professionals, in the best interests of children and their families. They make effective use of additional funding to meet the individual needs of those children.
• Staff gain a wealth of information from parents to enable them to understand children's individual needs and family backgrounds. However, staff do not always consider how they can make sure that children see themselves represented at the nursery. This does not fully support their sense of belonging and children's understanding of embracing similarities and differences.
• There are effective systems in place for supporting and training staff to enhance their skills as practitioners. Leaders regularly observe staff during their interactions with children and use this to assess their practice. They use this to inform discussions during individual meetings and to create a plan for development and training.
• Staff enable children to learn to be independent from a very young age. For example, babies have recently learned the sequence in washing their hands with soap and then drying them before placing the hand towel in the waste bin. This practice is fully embedded, enabling children attend to their own needs.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Parents comment about the effectiveness of communication and the consistency of the staffing team. They report that they receive information about their children's learning and development, both verbally and using an online system. Parents comment that their children develop good levels of communication and language skills and the knowledge of how to build friendships with others.
• Staff are highly effective and consistent in supporting children's understanding of their own behaviours and emotions. Staff communicate in ways that are age-appropriate and use positive reinforcement effectively. Children learn from a young age to regulate their feelings and understand the expectations of behaviour.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's understanding of their intention for the activities they plan to enhance children's learning
• embrace children's cultures and heritages further to support their understanding of similarities and differences.