Ribbon Daycare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive at this highly inviting and inclusive setting. They benefit from a challenging and ambitious curriculum that ignites children's curiosity to learn. This includes making new discoveries and showing determination to solve their own problems they encounter during play and investigations.

Children's communication and language skills are continually embedded throughout all age groups in the setting. Each nursery room focuses on core story books and familiar songs. These stories and songs are chosen with a specific focus to extend, challenge and build on children's level of development. Children are eager to recite stories to visitors and do so with intonation and animation. From babies through to pre-school, all children show a deep love of stories, songs and rhymes. Children take resources home to help to continue this learning. For instance, pre-school children look for sticks of different shapes and size while on walks with their family to bring back to nursery to work on for their individual projects. This is based on their favourite stories. Children create story maps using drawings and use their own sticks for different purposes. For instance, recreating a fishing rod, collecting leaves in puddles and even to pretend the sticks are magic wands. This helps to enhance children's excellent imaginative skills.

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

• Attachments between children and staff are remarkable. Children show that they feel safe and secure in the care of the highly nurturing and trusting staff. Staff shower children with an abundance of praise and encouragement. For instance, babies learning to climb steps on an indoor climbing frame smile and clap their hands with excitement, as staff rejoice in their achievements. This helps to promote children's self-esteem.
• Children develop wonderful friendships with one another and demonstrate exceptional social skills. They tell visitors about their best friends and how they love to spend time playing outdoors together. Children are extremely confident and eager to share their views about what they like doing at nursery. They show impeccable manners and excellent behaviour. Children participate in turn-taking games, including large-circle games. Children sit together in a circle and clap their hands as their friends take it in turns to hold hands and dance in the centre of the circle.
• Children are provided with nutritious foods and participate in cooking activities that help them to understand where food comes from. They benefit from exciting and adventurous physical play. Staff encourage babies to move their whole bodies while waving ribbons and dance enthusiastically to music. Toddlers combine paint, foam and water in the outdoor area. Staff encourage children to stretch tall, bend down low and reach across while painting and washing windows. Older children balance, climb and coordinate movements as they climb on large outdoor play equipment.
• Parents are extremely complimentary about leaders and staff. Staff visit children in their own homes before starting the setting and gather extensive information about children to help them to settle quickly. Parents are provided with very regular information about their children's development through an online digital platform. This includes observation and assessment information. Parents are invited to attend stay-and-play sessions.
• The highly qualified and knowledgeable leaders provide unwavering support for staff and lead by example. They provide superb coaching, mentoring and supervision sessions for staff to help enrich their knowledge and skills. They work collaboratively with staff to recognise and address training needs, which helps to continually enhance the highest level of practice. Leaders continually review and evaluate all aspects of the nursery and gather the views of staff, children and parents to ensure they provide consistent first-class care for children.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are fully supported to make the best possible progress in their learning and development. Staff work very closely with a range of external health professionals, such as Portage workers, speech and language therapists and health visitors. They provide excellent early intervention activities for children who they recognise may require additional support. This means that all children are very well prepared for their next stage in learning and their eventual move to school.