Purple Lion Day Nursery Chingford

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children build strong relationships with their key persons, who readily greet them on arrival. This helps children to feel safe and secure. Staff are caring and nurturing, and respond to children's needs. Children seek them out when they need comfort, demonstrating these bonds. Babies smile and hold out their arms, cuddling into their key person happily. There is a calm atmosphere across the nursery. Children show kindness to their friends. They share well and play cooperatively with the toys and resources. Staff help children to understand the routines of the day. They provide a timely reminder to children when it is nearly time to move to the next activity. This helps children to bring their play to a satisfactory end and prepares them for what comes next. As a result, children behave well and know what staff expect from them.

Children have daily opportunities to develop their physical skills. Babies learn to walk and move around as they use the low-level furniture to pull themselves up to a standing position. Babies are sensitively supported. Their individual routines are followed closely, ensuring they settle in very well. Sleep times are carefully arranged so that babies and toddlers get the rest they need. Children's health and well-being are given high priority. Nutritious meals are prepared and delivered by the link nursery. Children's dietary requirements are carefully implemented by the staff team.

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

• The manager organises a broad curriculum that is centred on developing children's communication, social and emotional skills. Staff use assessment well to check what children already know and can do, to inform their teaching. They organise activities that are linked to children's individual needs and interests, which promote children's focus and positive engagement in learning.
• Key-person systems are highly effective. Staff watch children closely to find out what they know and can do. They use their observations to plan activities that help children to make progress across the areas of learning.
• Partnership with parents is very good. Parents are extremely positive in their feedback of the nursery. They praise staff's 'kindness and care' in guiding their children and the progress children make. They compliment leaders and staff for their support of the whole family and in ensuring that their children feel safe and secure.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are very well supported. The special educational needs coordinator understands her role and responsibilities to help children and families get the early support they need. She holds regular meetings with parents and works closely with other professionals.
• Children learn about oral hygiene. A laminated 'mouth model' and plastic toothbrushes enable children to explore these during play. Mirrors and other role-play dental equipment enable children to look inside their mouth and to develop an understanding of how long to brush their teeth for. Accompanying pictures where children use pens to colour in plaque and remove it with a toothbrush help to support healthcare at home.
• Staff support children's developing language well. They engage children in conversation throughout the day. The conversational style is calm and purposeful. Staff repeat single words from a long sentence so that children hear and repeat key words. They weave mathematical language into all aspects of children's play. However, staff are not always ambitious in the language they use when talking with children, in order to extend their vocabulary more widely.
• Children show good independence skills. For example, they collect their own coats and fasten them up. Staff help children to learn how to hold their cutlery, and, after lunch, children scrape any excess waste into the bin and wash their hands. Staff encourage children to give things a go themselves before helping. This allows children to learn to do things for themselves and to feel a sense of pride and accomplishment.
• All children build on their physical development effectively. They spend lots of time in the nursery garden and enjoy vigorous exercise, such as weekly football coaching sessions. Toddlers ride tricycles and develop their lower-body muscles. However, children have limited opportunities to learn about the wider community in the immediate area, such as through trips to the nearby forest or the library.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide children with opportunities to access their local community and develop their understanding of the world around them
• enhance staff's practice and understanding of how to help children to develop a wide and varied vocabulary.