Rainbows Day Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff at this nursery develop strong relationships with children and families. Children feel safe with staff and go to them when they need comfort. Children are confident and independent. They explore the environment, making choices in their play. Staff encourage children to put their own shoes and coats on and manage their own personal care needs. This helps children to become self-sufficient.

The curriculum is well designed and is sequenced so that all children build on existing knowledge as they move through the nursery. Staff support children to develop their communication and language skills. They regularly share books with children and sing familiar rhymes. Children are keen to look at books and ask questions about characters in stories. Staff encourage children to think about the emotions of characters and why they might feel a certain way, which supports children's development of empathy. Staff support children to build relationships with one another and work together during their play.

Staff arrange the outdoor environment to provide a range of learning activities for children. They support children to climb steps and go down a slide, staying close to them to help them learn how to use equipment safely. Children have opportunities to use wheeled vehicles, which helps them to learn how to pedal and navigate the space around them. Staff plan activities that replicate those indoors. This helps children to practise skills and reinforce knowledge they have previously learned.

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

• Children make good progress from their starting points. The well-sequenced curriculum means that children build on their prior knowledge and gain new skills. For example, staff read traditional stories to children about three pigs. They then plan other activities, such as building houses from different materials, which enable children to use what they have learned from the story. This helps to consolidate children's knowledge.
• Staff plan a range of different activities for children that support all areas of their learning. They take children's interests into account when planning activities so that children are keen to take part. However, some staff do not ensure that the activities they provide are exciting enough to fully capture children's attention. This means that, along with some other distractions in the room, children do not fully concentrate on the activities and therefore do not gain the learning they are capable of.
• Staff teach children the skills they need to learn for their next stage of learning. For example, pre-school children develop their pencil control by tracing over printed lines. They learn to recognise and write their own names. However, staff do not always plan activities that meet the needs of all children. Some children lose interest in some activities as they find them too challenging.
• Staff identify delays in children's development quickly. They assess children's development regularly, which helps them to understand what skills they still need to acquire. Any delays in children's development are acted on swiftly, and staff seek further support from external agencies when required. They work closely with parents and implement strategies that support all children to make progress.
• Staff have opportunities to develop their own professional knowledge and skills. They have regular supervision meetings with leaders, which helps to identify areas of their practice that need to be improved. Staff are keen to engage in training that increases their knowledge of how children learn. They feel supported by managers and enjoy working as a close team.
• Leaders are committed and passionate about providing quality experiences for children. They observe staff practice and spend time in playrooms modelling teaching and reviewing where improvements are needed to enhance the experiences on offer.
• Parents are highly complimentary about the nursery. They feel supported as a whole family unit and comment that their children are happy to attend. Leaders and staff understand the needs of the families who attend and are committed to working in close partnership with them. Leaders and staff signpost families to other services and, at times, visit family homes to develop parents' knowledge of safety in the home. Parents receive regular updates about their children and are given ideas of how they can help their children to make further progress at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to plan stimulating and exciting activities that capture children's attention
• support staff to differentiate activities so that all children benefit from the learning opportunities offered to them.