Santos Day Nurseries

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The managers focus on providing children with a wide range of learning experiences, including going on outings to enrich their knowledge and skills. For example, staff used a recent visit to the cinema to support children's emotional awareness and understanding of transport in the local community. Pre-school children use the experience in their role play as they pretend to be bus drivers. They understand about behaviour expectations and behave well.

A prime focus of the curriculum is to support children's communication and language skills. Staff use a wide range of language-based activities to accelerate children's progress. For example, exercising the tongue to support children's mouth muscles for clear pronunciation. Staff speak a variety of languages and use this skill to support children who speak English as an additional language. This helps children to develop a sense of belonging and make connections in their language. The managers recognise the importance of supporting children's listening skills so they can tune into the sounds they can hear.

An effective key-person system is in place and staff know the children well. Each child has a dedicated key person to build close connections and plan for their learning. However, other staff in the room also have an in-depth knowledge of the children to provide continuity for their learning. Children show they feel happy and secure.

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

• The managers have supported staff effectively to make improvements to their practice. They have provided staff with intensive training and coaching to improve their teaching skills and embed good-quality practice across the nursery. The manager has worked closely with the local authority and embraced the local initiatives that reflect the needs of the families and children in the area.
• Parent partnership working is a key strength of the nursery. The managers provide a range of opportunities throughout the year for parents to be involved in their child's learning. This includes a recent literacy project with some families. Parents appreciate the communication that staff provide them with about their child. They speak highly about the service provided.
• The management team are well focused on the monitoring of staff practice and this has been instrumental in making improvements. However, they do not receive consistent support to enable them to embed the changes made and maintain continuous improvement.
• Overall, the manager and deputy manager have designed a curriculum that is effectively focused on extending children's knowledge and skills as they progress through the different rooms. The curriculum for communication and language is well sequenced across the nursery. However, they have not precisely identified the knowledge they want children to gain in in their physical development and personal development, especially for the older children.
• Staff make good use of their observations of children's achievements to plan the next steps for their learning. They have a good understanding of the learning priorities for each child and implement appropriate daily routines that maintain a focus on children's learning. Although teaching is good, staff do not recognise when they need to adapt their teaching to provide children with consistently high levels of challenge, particularly when children are playing indoors.
• Staff successfully support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The special educational needs coordinator is very knowledgeable about her role and how to liaise with the local authority and other outside agencies to engage further professional support.
• Staff make good use of children's interests to plan for their learning. They recognise when children are particularly engaged in a topic they have introduced and plan further opportunities to deepen children's interest and their motivation to play and explore. For example, staff working with babies use their favourite books and interest in animals to promote their learning.
• Staff place a strong focus on encouraging children to make choices about where they will play and what they will do. This includes opportunities for younger children to play alongside older children. Staff effectively support children to take turns and incorporate this into their planning for their adult-led activities. This helps children to manage their feelings and wait for what they want.
• The manager has effective arrangements in place for children's transitions to the next room and staff plan well for this. For example, they help toddlers to become familiar with the various resources that are accessible to them, including where to return them. This helps to establish a sense of belonging.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• prioritise the monitoring of staff practice and support to management to maintain the good progress made and embed practice further
• give further consideration to planning across the key areas of the curriculum to identify further ways to sequence the knowledge and skills that older children need to gain
• help staff recognise when to adapt teaching to continually build on what children know, understand and can do to maximise their learning.