Seeds to Stars Day Care Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy attending this welcoming and inclusive nursery. They build warm and respectful relationships with staff and arrive happy and ready for their day. Staff gather lots of information from parents when their children first start at the setting. They use this information to plan familiar care routines and take account of children's interests and learning needs. This helps to ensure that children receive the individual support that they need from their starting points. Children who are new to the nursery settle in quickly and demonstrate that they feel safe and secure.

Children make good use of the inviting and accessible resources and activities that staff plan for them. For example, babies thoroughly enjoy sand and water play activities. They develop their physical skills and coordination as they learn how to use one-handled tools. Older children enjoy exploring how to make different colours by mixing paints using primary colours. They confidently predict what will happen next as they add more paint to the mixture. Children are busy and engage in play with the caring staff team. They respond well to the consistent strategies that staff use to encourage and promote positive behaviour. Children's behaviour is good. They learn how to share, take turns and cooperate from an early stage.

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

• The management team has implemented a system where parents drop off and collect their children at the door, to minimise the spread of infection during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Parents are complimentary about staff's good use of electronic communications to share key information about their children's daily experiences and care routines.
• Staff clearly know the children in their care well. They observe children closely during play to assess their stage of development. Staff share this information with parents and take account of their views when planning children's next steps in learning. This helps to promote a consistent approach towards children's learning.
• The special educational needs coordinator uses her knowledge to assist staff in meeting the needs of children who need additional help with their learning. They work closely with parents and make referrals to other professionals, where required. This helps to ensure that children receive the targeted support they need.
• Children are supported well to develop good levels of communication and language skills. For example, staff working with babies encourage them to babble and repeat new words that they learn during play. Children enjoy joining in with songs and rhymes that help develop their early literacy skills. Those children who have identified gaps in their communication and language development receive targeted interventions. This helps to ensure all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those who speak English as an additional language, make good rates of progress.
• Overall, children's learning is generally well supported through positive interactions with staff during play and activities. However, on occasions, some staff do not consistently challenge children or allow them enough time to solve problems independently, particularly during mathematical activities. As a result, some children are not challenged enough in their learning.
• Staff support older children to join in with daily discussions that help them to recognise a range of emotions and ways to communicate how they are feeling. Staff working with babies are attentive and provide them with the emotional support that they need throughout the day. Children develop good levels of self-regulation and emotional security.
• Children become increasingly independent as they move between the nursery rooms. For example, younger children are supported to wash their hands and feed themselves independently. Older children learn how to follow good hygiene practices and become independent in dressing and undressing. This helps to prepare children well for their eventual move to school.
• Leaders are ambitious and have high expectations of children and staff. They have recently introduced new methods for planning the curriculum. Staff have received coaching and attended training to help them understand how to implement these changes into practice. However, there are times when managers do not identify when staff do not implement the curriculum as successfully as possible to help build further on children's skills and knowledge.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• continue to monitor staff's professional development to ensure that training is fully understood and key messages are consistently implemented into practice
• strengthen support for staff to enhance their teaching skills, particularly during mathematical activities, so that children are further challenged and have time to solve problems independently.