Puffins Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this caring and nurturing nursery. They build strong bonds with the supportive staff and demonstrate that they feel safe and emotionally secure in their care. Parents of new children are encouraged to stay to get to know staff and enjoy new activities with their children. Sessions free of charge are routinely offered to help children to become familiar with their room. This helps staff to build strong trusting relationships with parents and family members.

Dedicated staff deliver a suitably challenging curriculum that supports all children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The manager acts with integrity in using the funding the nursery receives to provide extra support to those children who need it the most. Children enjoy activities that are well suited to their age and stage of development. Babies enjoy the calm environment of their well-resourced room. They receive excellent support to explore and develop their physical skills. Younger children receive good guidance to help them to play with their friends and learn to share. Older children have many opportunities to develop their independence skills, extend their communication skills and be ready for the next stage of their learning. Staff are positive role models for children. They encourage children to use good manners and show respect for each other. Children's behaviour is very good.

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

• Parents speak highly of the nursery and comment on the wonderful progress their children make. They enjoy talking to the helpful staff when they come to collect their children, and they make good use of the secure online systems to read more information. Each child has a special nursery bag and takes home a book to read. This helps to further children's development and learning.
• The owner/manager is highly committed to the continuous professional development of her staff. She expertly models good teaching to staff, for example how to use reference books to further extend older children's knowledge. However, she does not routinely monitor staff to ensure all children experience the curriculum content at a greater depth. As a result, there are some inconsistencies in teaching.
• There are effective partnerships with parents and other professionals to provide targeted interventions to help children with SEND achieve their full potential. Managers have attended specialised speech, language and communication training and provide extra guidance for staff to support children who need this.
• Staff are creative and plan activities that follow children's interests. For example, pre-school children enjoy making a 'dinosaur land' with materials such as twigs, leaves and sand. Children excitedly add more shaving foam and talk about their imaginary world of volcanos and lava. Staff skilfully extend children's learning with good questioning and give children time to think about their responses. This helps to develop children's confidence and communication skills.
• The owner and the deputy manager work well together to provide effective leadership and management. There is a strong team ethos and staff report high levels of support for well-being issues. There is a positive focus on continual improvement and there have been changes to how some rooms and resources are used to enhance teaching. However, some plans are not yet fully embedded to ensure all children benefit from them.
• The nursery operates from a very large warehouse-style building. Staff follow good hygiene procedures and complete robust risk assessments to provide children with a safe and secure environment inside and outside. However, there are many cobwebs on extremely high ceilings and windows. The owner recognises that additional equipment is required to clean these areas effectively but has not arranged for this to be done.
• The friendly cook ensures all dietary needs are catered for. Children enjoy healthy menu options, and specific requirements for babies are met.
• The outdoor environment is used well. For example, children carefully look for different-coloured leaves and receive good support to talk about the different shapes and sizes. They add the leaves to mud and twigs and enjoy their imaginary play in the 'rainforest café', making meals for staff. There is lots of laughter as staff and children chat about the lifestyles of different animals.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on plans to provide better monitoring of teaching, to ensure all children experience the curriculum content at a greater depth
• continue to implement and embed plans to further improve the environment, to ensure all children benefit from them
• consider ways to improve the cleaning of high ceilings and windows.