Shira Daycare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle quickly and feel secure in this warm, friendly and caring environment. The passionate and enthusiastic leaders want the very best for every child. Together with staff, they share an ethos that values all children. Staff provide well-planned-out, safe and stimulating environments for children. They create spaces and plan activities that reflect children's interests and stages of development. For example, young children have space to roll and enjoy 'tummy time'. Older babies can move along and around furniture, in preparation for starting to walk.

Staff know the children very well and form good relationships with them. They engage the children in conversation and encourage them to participate in activities. For example, all children learn signing so that they can communicate with their friends and understand their needs. Children are happy and very well behaved. Staff are very gentle, calm and excellent role models. They have high expectations and children's behaviour is good. They show care and concern for their peers. For example, they phone their absent friend during circle time to 'make them happy' when they are not there. They all shout, 'Get well soon' on the speaker phone. During the COVID-19 pandemic, managers and staff maintained effective ongoing telephone and online contact with the children and their families. Consequently, children's return to the nursery has been successful.

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

• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is a strength of the nursery. The knowledgeable special educational needs coordinator swiftly identifies children who need additional support. She helps staff to make plans, to adapt the educational programme to meet children's learning needs. Intervention plans are regularly monitored and gaps in learning are targeted with precision. Children make good progress.
• Dedicated leaders and managers have a clear and ambitious design for their curriculum and a desire to improve the outcomes for children. They act with integrity. Funding is used to provide personalised support to those children who need it the most. For example, they use a sensory room, bring in private play therapists and physiotherapists, and support children with speech and language delay.
• Leaders place a great focus on children's communication and language development. They are currently supporting staff to model more rich language, to help children to extend their vocabulary even further. However, this is not yet firmly in place consistently across the staff team.
• Staff plan 'stand-alone' topics for children to see positive images, such as different food and people from a variety of backgrounds. However, staff do not teach children about the similarities and differences that make them unique, in greater depth. This means that children do not have the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of equality and diversity.
• Staff offer specific activities to extend children's individual learning needs. For example, they use visual timetables to support children's understanding of what is happening throughout the day, and what is coming next. This makes sure that all children are familiar with the daily routine of the nursery.
• Children have well-developed small-muscle skills and have a variety of opportunities to practise these skills. They scoop coloured rice into different containers, and enjoy rolling and manipulating the dough. This allows them to develop good skills for early writing.
• Leaders recognise the importance of children leading an active, healthy lifestyle. For instance, they have recently developed the outdoor area to include a rooftop garden and areas for each age group. Children have good opportunities to be physically active. For example, they run, climb and pedal tricycles.
• Although staff have high expectations of children's behaviour and have put routines and boundaries in place, this is not consistent throughout the setting. For example, staff do not always explain to children that it is dangerous to walk around with food in their mouths.
• Partnership working with parents is excellent. Parents say that they would not hesitate to recommend the nursery. They highly commend the staff team and their communication, and feel a part of their children's educational experience. They particularly enjoy videos which the setting sends home, to show the progress their child has made, for instance during 'play therapy' sessions.
• Managers are motivated and enthusiastic. They are very committed to ongoing improvements at the nursery. Staff have good opportunities for professional development. For example, following oral health training, staff organised activities for children to learn about brushing teeth and provided free-flow cups to help protect children's teeth.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• ensure the plans to strengthen staff's teaching are firmly in place, to help children develop a wider vocabulary
• provide more opportunities for children to learn about equality and diversity, to prepare them for life in modern Britain
• improve staff's understanding of the importance of effective rules and boundaries, for example during snack times, and ensure that these are consistently followed.