St Lawrence's Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a warm and welcoming environment specifically for babies and toddlers. The robust key-person system enables staff to build strong relationships with children and families. New children enjoy receiving cuddles and support from staff. Children settle quickly and feel safe and secure, and they are eager to play with their friends.

Children benefit from an exciting, child-centred curriculum that ignites their curiosity and engages them well in learning. For example, staff blow bubbles for babies to watch and catch, helping them to develop their hand-eye coordination. Toddlers explore play dough. They strengthen their fine motor skills through rolling, pressing and making patterns. Staff provide skilled support, ensuring that children gain the knowledge and skills they need for future learning.

Staff support children's emotional well-being. They use effective strategies to help children understand their feelings. For example, children learn about 'colour monsters' to help them recognise, understand and manage their emotions. Staff show children respect, and they are polite and use good manners when addressing them. Staff ask children's permission before carrying out personal care tasks, such as nappy changes or helping with self-care routines. Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. They introduce 'Golden Rules', such as being kind to our friends, from an early age. Staff give gentle reminders when needed and encourage good behaviour through consistent praise. As a result, children behave well and are kind and caring to each other.

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

• Managers and staff are extremely passionate about the care provided to children. They create a nurturing home-from-home environment. They aim for children to become confident and independent learners. Managers prioritise staff supervision and training, offering opportunities for professional development to enhance their knowledge and skills. Staff feel well supported by managers. They work well as a team and are happy in the workplace.
• Staff support children's communication and language development. They narrate children's play and introduce new sounds and words throughout activities. Babies and toddlers eagerly join in with stories and singing, copying actions and repeating simple words. Staff ensure children hear a rich and varied vocabulary by consistently narrating their play. However, staff could further enhance children's language skills by consistently allowing toddlers more time to respond to questions and encouraging them to sound out words, helping to strengthen their early language development.
• Staff clearly identify what they want children to achieve. They use children's starting points and interests to engage them in learning. Children adopt a 'can-do' attitude, taking risks and solving problems. For example, babies negotiate the rungs on a ladder, carefully working out how to move from one rung to the next. Toddlers build ramps for their cars by stacking boxes and balancing drainpipes. They work together to steady the pipes, showing teamwork and determination to reach their goal. This supports children to be confident learners.
• Children enjoy a wide range of experiences that develop their understanding of the community and the wider world. Staff discuss other cultures and family structures as part of everyday play and through resources. Children visit the local church and meet visitors, such as a dentist, who come to talk to them. Parents help to enrich children's experiences. For example, they bring lambs in for the children to see and learn about.
• Partnerships with parents are a key strength of the setting. Parents feel that staff are nurturing and warm. They comment that staff provide children with enriching experiences that enable them to thrive. Staff ensure that parents receive daily communication, both verbally and through an online system. They receive daily information about their children's care and photos of their day. Furthermore, staff send information about children's development and how parents can support learning at home.
• Staff promote children's health and well-being. Children go outdoors every day and benefit from fresh air in the outdoor learning environment. The setting provides well-balanced, home-cooked meals and snacks. Children have access to drinking water throughout the day. Staff talk to the children about healthy eating and plan activities to support children's learning. For example, toddlers help prepare vegetables to make soup for afternoon tea

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to develop their understanding of how to consistently promote and extend children's early language and communication skills.