Serendipity's Day Nursery and Pre-school

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children receive comfort from staff who are responsive to their immediate needs. For instance, when very young children fall to sleep, staff rub their tummies to soothe them. Older children confidently give staff cuddles to show them affection. Younger children are supported to sit and listen during group times. For instance, staff divide children into smaller groups, which helps them to focus and engage more effectively.

Children have opportunities to develop their physical skills. For instance, very young children are supported by staff to begin to walk. When children are confident walkers, they negotiate different-level surfaces in the garden, helping to develop their balance and coordination. Older children confidently hold on to bars and swing their legs, showing their upper body strength. When children do this, staff stay close to offer support if necessary while allowing children to challenge their abilities. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well. Timely referrals are made, and staff liaise with other professionals to establish and implement targeted support to help children progress in their learning. Additional funding is used effectively to meet children's individual needs. This includes purchasing books that staff read to children, helping them understand similarities and differences in family circumstances.

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

• Staff implement effective strategies to promote children's safety. For instance, they ensure the nursery is secure and that unauthorised people cannot enter the building. Staff supervise children well in the playrooms and outdoors. Staff with paediatric first-aid training are deployed well throughout the nursery to enable them to deal with a minor medical incident quickly.
• Overall, staff use the curriculum to support children's communication skills well. For example, staff ask older children a good range of questions to encourage their thinking skills. However, sometimes, staff do not fully support younger children's early speaking skills. For example, staff use long sentences when they speak to children. This reduces opportunities for children to copy key words.
• Staff extend their knowledge of how to support children's learning, for example through completing training courses. Staff implement messy play activities for very young children to help develop their senses. Staff provide older children with a range of resources they can use in different ways to help promote their imagination.
• Staff provide opportunities for children to learn about the importance of taking care of their teeth. For example, they show younger children how to use toothbrushes to brush dolls' teeth. Staff ask older children to remember stories about teeth. Children recall characters in books having spots in their mouth because they did not clean their teeth.
• Older children understand the rules and boundaries. For example, they explain to visitors that they might bump their heads if they run indoors. However, sometimes, children are not as effectively supported to find strategies to manage conflict for themselves.
• Staff build on opportunities for children to be independent. For instance, very young children learn how to use spoons to feed themselves. As they move to the next room in the nursery, children begin to use forks and spoons. Older children use knives and forks and serve themselves food at lunchtime.
• Staff effectively identify what their key children need to learn next and how to support their development. However, the strategies in place to share this information with other staff are not fully effective. This means that not all staff understand how to help children progress in their learning when they play alongside them.
• Staff support parents to continue their children's learning at home. For example, they give parents information about how they can support their children's toileting needs. Staff introduce learning bags for parents to borrow to enable them to support their children's mathematics skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on staff's interactions with younger children to more effectively support their early speaking skills
• support staff to help children manage conflicts for themselves
• strengthen the sharing of information about children's individual learning between the children's key person and other staff.