Prime Time 2 Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy coming to this warm and inviting setting. They play happily with their friends and demonstrate that they feel safe, as they quickly engage in activities. There is a large range of age-appropriate resources both indoors and outside, which build on children's developing skills. For example, pre-school children play outdoors with a large parachute. They learn to work together to move the parachute up and down. Developing their physical skills as they do so. Indoors, babies play with an array of balls. They use their fine and gross motor skills to hold them and roll them across the floor. Children behave well and staff support them to understand the rules and boundaries of the setting. For example, as pre-school children sit to have a story, staff remind them of 'good listening' and 'good sitting'. Staff remind younger children to share toys and to be kind to each other.

Children learn about their local community through meaningful experiences. For example, staff and children celebrate Eid. They dress in traditional clothing and parents bring in traditional food for the children to try. Children also learn about a range of festivals throughout the year. For instance, they are learning about the coronation of the new King. This helps children to learn about Britain and helps them understand the wider world they live in.

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

• Leaders and managers have a strong passion to improve the outcomes for the children in their care. They ensure that staff have access to training to enhance their professional development and teaching skills. Leaders and managers place a strong emphasis on staff well-being and support staff with regular supervisions where they can discuss any issues they may have, both personal and professionally. Staff say they feel that management offer good support and that they feel valued.
• Staff introduce mathematical language into everyday learning. They introduce words such as 'more', 'less', 'bigger' and 'smaller' as they describe things. They count with the children and encourage them to sort and name colours and shapes during other activities such as threading. However, staff do not consistently make the most of opportunities to further support children to learn numbers in context. For example, pre-school children count fruit, but do not relate it to the actual number of fruit in front of them.
• Children of all ages enjoy books. Babies sit independently and turn the pages to look at the pictures. Pre-school children sit and listen intently as staff read stories, creating excitement and anticipation as they read. Children fully engage and show animation as they get ready to shout out the familiar lines in the story. This promotes children language and listening skills. It helps them to develop a love for books and literacy which will support their future learning.
• Parent partnership is strong. Parents informed the inspector they feel their children are happy and safe at the setting. They say that they receive feedback using the online system, and this tells them about their children's day and their development. They receive regular newsletters and updates about up and coming events.
• The children's health and well-being are promoted well. For example, at snack time children learn healthy messages about the importance of eating fruit and taking daily exercise. During the day staff support children to brush their teeth, and remind them of the importance of looking after their teeth. Children enjoy healthy snacks and lunch and have access to water throughout the day.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) make good progress. Staff show their skills and knowledge as they support individual children's needs. Specific training that has been undertaken by staff. This is now embedded into their daily practice and has a good impact on the children's outcomes.
• Overall, the curriculum is well planned. Staff embed the ethos of story-based learning to develop their planning. For example, they plan around 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' story. Children learn about life cycles of insects, symmetry and health eating. However, occasionally, staff planning is not precise enough to ensure that children gain new or strengthen current skills from activities. As a result, children's learning is not always to the highest level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen activity planning by focusing precisely on the skills and knowledge children will gain from activities and how this will build on prior learning and support their good progress
• enhance children's learning of mathematical concepts and the context of numbers.