Ramsey Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and confident at the nursery. They settle well, leaving their family members with ease. Staff are kind and loving in their interactions with children, which helps them form strong bonds with their key person. In the youngest children's rooms, photos of families are displayed, and pictures of children's real homes are used in role play to help build a sense of community and belonging in the nursery.

Leaders help staff understand their intent for children's learning and staff's contributions to devising the new curriculum have been fully valued. Staff consider the learning environment and help children build positive attitudes to learning. Children are eager to have a go and explore. Older children show perseverance when presented with a challenge, such as cutting up raw vegetables with a knife. Staff help children to develop their independence skills. For example, they provide nose-wiping stations and encourage babies to use cutlery at mealtimes. Staff use visual aids to help all children gain a sense of routine and what to expect next. Children are building the language they need to communicate their needs with others. This helps them to express themselves with their friends as they learn to share and to take turns.

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

• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and their families receive exemplary support and guidance from the nursery's passionate and dedicated special educational needs coordinator (SENCo). She works tirelessly with staff to ensure that children are provided with a learning environment that consistently meets their needs and helps them make the very best progress they can. Very positive relationships are in place with parents and other professionals to ensure that identified learning targets are consistently implemented.
• Leaders and staff have recently devised a nursery curriculum that focuses on children's resilience, respect for others and readiness to learn. Although not yet fully embedded, staff are beginning to plan and deliver activities with this focus in mind. Leaders recognise the support that staff need to embed the curriculum, and they have plans to build on their current monitoring of staff practice to ensure that children consistently receive high-quality learning experiences. Staff share that they feel very supported in their role.
• Staff demonstrate that they know their key children well. They find out what children know and can do, consider their interests and build their learning from there. However, sometimes, some staff are not always clear about their intended focus for an activity. On occasions, they do not successfully recognise where children's learning can be extended further.
• Children's communication and language is a key focus of the nursery. Older children independently look at books and describe what they see from the pictures. Staff play music and sing with babies. Staff use signing as another means of communication to help very young children express their wants and needs as they begin to develop their vocabulary.
• Staff understand the importance of outdoor play and time spent in the fresh air for children's bodies and their overall good health. A number of well-planned garden areas give children space to freely explore the natural world and be physically active.
• Parents receive regular communication about their child's time in the nursery and they speak very highly of the setting and staff. They state that they have found staff to be very supportive and professional, especially where their children need additional support. Parents hear about their children's progress and how they can support learning through regular parents' evenings.
• Leaders take swift action when unexpected incidents occur. Following a recent incident, leaders have reinforced and strengthened the procedures for when children are moving between rooms prior to lunch. This includes head counts, checks of rooms and photographic registers of children. This helps to ensure children's safety and welfare. Staff also consistently teach children how to keep themselves safe, such as how to safely walk up and down the stairs holding the handrail.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• extend existing systems for the monitoring of staff performance to help staff strengthen the delivery of the curriculum and extend children's learning even further.