Simply Cherish Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The curriculum is ambitious for all children. As result, children are gaining lots of knowledge and skills that help to prepare them for their future learning. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Children with SEND thrive because staff focus on what they need to learn and break down tasks into small steps. This gives children the right support they need to succeed.

Managers and staff have created a happy and safe environment for children. They know the children well and take time to build relationships with their parents. This partnership working helps children to feel settled from the onset. For example, staff share ideas with parents to help further extend their children's communication and language skills. Staff acknowledge families' different faiths and provide opportunities to celebrate special events, such as Divali, with all children. This helps children to understand that people have different beliefs, which enhances their awareness of the community and the wider world.

Children have many opportunities to take on important roles, which keeps them motivated and gives them a sense of importance. For example, pre-school children enjoy the responsibility of setting the table for lunch. Toddlers show respect for their environment as they sweep up the sand, without any help from staff. All children beam with pride when they are praised for their hard work.

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

• The leadership and management team works harmoniously with staff. This creates a happy environment for children, who display an eagerness to learn. Children enter the nursery happily and greet their friends and staff with a smile.
• Children have forged strong bonds with staff and approach them with ease. During the inspection, a toddler playing outdoors expressed his desire to come inside because 'it's freezing.' Staff listened and acted swiftly. Children know they can express their thoughts and opinions, and they will be listened to.
• Staff provide lots of activities that ignite children's interests and build on their learning. For example, babies demonstrate high levels of involvement as they post discs into a box. At other times, they climb the soft steps and whizz down the slide. These activities are available at all times. As such, babies are able to revisit and practise their newly acquired skills.
• Babies are developing confidence in their abilities and demonstrate a 'can-do' attitude as they start to totter and walk. However, staff do not plan how best to support babies to help them master this skill. For example, babies gravitate to one side of the room, which is set out with lots of toys and activities. This means they do not have the clear space they need to practise their walking without hindrance.
• There is a strong focus on supporting children's communication and language skills. Staff speak clearly and articulately. They also talk to children and babies at their level. For example, babies babble happily as staff interact with them and give them lots of eye contact. This generates lots of communication.
• Children who speak English as an additional language are truly supported. Staff acknowledge that children need time to learn English, so they ask parents to record their voices on a recording device. This helps new children to feel settled as they hear their parents' voices saying familiar phrases, such as 'let's tidy up'. This also helps children to understand what is happening next. As children become settled, they develop confidence and begin to use lots of words in English.
• There is a clear curriculum intent, which sets out what children need to learn and in what order. However, this is not always implemented in practice. Occasionally, staff lose focus on what they want children to learn. At other times, they are not always confident planning activities that build on children's capabilities. This means there are times when activities do not extend children's learning even further. Leaders and managers know this is an area that needs to be developed.
• Children are well behaved and show kindness to their friends. For example, they help each other as they play educational games on the computer. They also know when the sand goes to the bottom of the timer, they must let somebody else have a turn. This helps children to understand the rules of sharing.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve the organisation of the learning environment in the baby room, to help babies further develop their physical skills
• provide further support to staff to help enhance the teaching of the curriculum, to extend further children's learning.