Siblings Private Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Older children concentrate hard on their chosen task. They are confident and try different approaches to problems they encounter and persist until they succeed. For example, children watch as they drip textured sand through funnels and tubes. They use water spray bottles and add sprinkles of water to sand. Children watch as their mixture filters through the different-sized funnels. They exclaim, 'The sand is too wet! It is stuck inside.' All children develop excellent physical skills. Toddlers show determination as they learn to manoeuvre over different-textured slopes and surfaces in the exciting outdoor area. They climb and step over wooden stumps and bark chippings before reaching their chosen resting spot. Older children work in partnership as they connect plastic blocks together. They then use them to create a balancing beam. Children applaud each other as they successfully balance and walk to the other side. This demonstrates the excellent friendships that children form. Older children have good hand-to-eye coordination. They giggle and smile at each other as they play ball games. They laugh with excitement as the ball attaches itself to the sticky pads that they use to catch it. Children behave well. They are polite and show good manners towards others.

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

• Leaders identify what it is that they want children to learn. They work closely with the qualified staff team to implement a curriculum that enables children to fulfil their potential. Children benefit from a highly stimulating and well-resourced environment. They use a range of natural materials to help extend their own play.
• Staff complete online training and participate in regular staff meetings. Leaders complete supervision sessions with staff and work collaboratively with them to help promote staff's well-being. For example, during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) restrictions, leaders kept in regular contact with all staff to help offer guidance and support, including for those who were unable to work.
• Staff capture children's observations and understand where children are in their development. They complete the required progress check for children at the age of two years and share assessments of children's learning with parents. Staff invite parents to online meetings about their children's progress and to review changes in the setting. They also share photographs and observations of children over a secure online platform. This helps to provide a continued approach to children's learning.
• Leaders comment on the challenges that the setting has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have seen an impact on younger children's emotional well-being, particularly babies and young children. This has been due to the restrictions on social interaction over this period. Leaders and staff are working hard to strengthen their key-person system to help children settle quickly, particularly those children in the baby room.
• Staff nurture children's vivid imagination skills. Children immerse themselves in pretend play scenarios. For instance, children wear capes and masks. They pretend to fly around the garden and take on the role of superheroes. Children engage in dialogue with one another. They use resources available to them, such as large hoops to create wheels. Children hold the hoops and ask others to climb on board their bus as they drive off to the cinema together. Younger children dress up in various outfits and take on the roles of others. For instance, they pretend to care for one another in their doctors surgery role-play area.
• Children benefit from a wide range of sensory experiences. For example, they mix ingredients together to create scented dough. Children invite others to smell the different oils they use, including lemon essence. They laugh and say 'this smells sour'. Staff engage children further and encourage them to count how many more scoops of flour they might need. They use mathematical language, including 'full' and 'empty'.
• Overall, leaders review areas of development within the setting. They identify the strengths of the setting and what they need to do to improve. However, they are less successful in capturing the views of all parents in order to help review the overall quality of practice.
• Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, develop good communication and language skills. Children listen as staff read aloud their favourite stories. Young children smile as staff sing familiar rhymes.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen key-person system and help children to settle quickly, particularly those children in the baby room
• extend self-evaluation procedures and capture the views of children and parents in order to help drive improvement forward.