Precious Times Childcare Services Riverside

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

All children are respected as unique individuals. Staff work closely with parents to ensure that children's individual needs are met. The management team promotes staff well-being and focuses on their continuous professional development. This helps to ensure that good standards of care and learning are maintained. Children remain safe due to the vigilance of staff. Staff provide friendly reminders as they reinforce the nursery rules and expectations to children. This helps them learn to respect and adhere to these. Turn-taking and sharing are actively supported with all children, but especially with children aged two to three years. During small, planned group activities, staff use children's names in turn as they roll a car to them. They help children learn to wait for their turn during the simple game.

Staff engage children in purposeful, hands-on learning experiences, supporting each child to build on their prior knowledge and skills. For example, in the baby room, staff have strategically placed sensory coloured bags higher up to encourage babies to stand and reach up. Pre-school children enjoy planned activities that focus on promoting their early writing skills. Children listen and follow the directions of staff as they move to the music, copying actions as they hold pieces of fabric. They then practise the movements as they make marks using chalks on the floor. Quieter, more reserved children are encouraged to participate at their own pace through the skilled support of staff.

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

• Managers work closely together, overseeing and monitoring staff practice. Regular questions on the intent for activities or safeguarding scenarios enable management to identify where any support is needed. Managers then provide coaching and training opportunities tailored to the needs of staff. Staff report how they feel well supported by management.
• Staff work hard to ensure that all children feel settled and secure in their care. They promote children's self-esteem as they celebrate their achievements. Older children are prepared for changes to the routine so that they are accepting of these.
• One-to-one and small-group activities are used to support children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities effectively. These targeted interventions support children's listening, attention and communication skills. For example, staff encourage children to sit, listen and focus as they use describing words for each item selected out of a special bucket.
• Story sacks help to engage babies in story time. Staff introduce older children to a book of the week. Through repeatedly reading the story, children begin to recall familiar phrases. Staff also talk about the book to promote children's understanding.
• While main meals are served at the table, two- to three-year-old children have snack on the floor, picnic style. However, the organisation of this is not fully effective in enabling staff to continue to promote children's skills. Due to the seating arrangements, social interactions and independence and communication skills are not as effectively promoted as they are at other times.
• Staff plan short circle-time activities to promote babies' social, communication and physical skills. Babies enjoy holding scarfs and moving these when singing. When using a bubble machine, staff encourage babies to reach out and pop the bubbles. Staff introduce associated rhymes and introduce words such as 'bubble', 'pop' and 'catch'.
• Two- to three-year-olds and pre-school children explore their imagination and develop their fine motor skills when painting. Older children have fun experimenting with mixing the paints together. One child excitedly explains how they are a 'genius' as they have made purple by mixing blue and red together.
• When playing with play dough, staff purposefully provide children with one pair of scissors so that they are encouraged to share and ask for their turn. However, sometimes, staff do not consistently help children to try and find their own ideas and ways of doing things during their play. For example, children state they do not know how to make eyes on their play dough model. Staff immediately provide them with a solution as they explain how to roll smaller bits of play dough into balls to make eyes.
• Parents report positively on how they are kept informed about their child through verbal communication, online systems and through attending stay-and-play sessions. This enables them to find out what their children are learning so that they can continue to support them at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider the organisation of snack time in the two- to three-year-old children's room, so that the experience is more effectively used to continue to support children's ongoing learning
• support all staff to consistently help children to develop their own ideas and strategies for doing things.