Sunbeams Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive at this very welcoming and friendly nursery. Staff are attentive, and they interact warmly with children. Staff are kind and caring in their approach. They know the children well and are very supportive and encouraging of them. Children are happy and confident, showing high levels of self-esteem.

Staff plan an ambitious curriculum that successfully interests and challenges children to make good progress in their learning across all areas. Staff place a strong focus on developing children's independence and preparing them for their future learning, including starting school. Staff organise a broad range of experiences for children to help them learn about the world. For example, they explore and learn about the life cycle of the butterfly and the frog. They enjoy visits from the local police community support officers and ask questions and gain a sense of belonging within the local community.

Staff teach the children how to play cooperatively. For example, they provide sand timers to encourage children to take turns when using the role-play equipment, which they do well. This helps children to gain a good understanding about fairness and supports them to learn respect for one another.

Partnerships with parents are strong. Parents are happy with the provision, and they feel well informed about their children's progress. Staff share information with parents about different topics, for example, healthy eating, ideas for lunch boxes and the importance of good oral health, to help them support their children's learning further at home.

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

• Staff plan a curriculum that continuously builds on what children already know and can do. They use assessments effectively to identify any gaps in children's learning and take swift action to close these with targeted support.
• Children develop good communication and language skills. Staff are careful to position themselves so that they are close by to extend children's learning or introduce words such as 'colander', as the children pick the fruit and vegetables they have helped to grow in the nursery garden.
• Children develop a love of books and stories. They have opportunities to make marks and write for different purposes to support their literacy development. However, staff do not encourage children to begin to link sounds to letters.
• Children have many opportunities to develop good physical skills. This is through daily outdoor play, where they have space to run, balance and climb. During the inspection, they take part in a movement session where they enthusiastically join in with the actions. Staff provide a variety of activities to develop children's fine motor skills. For example, children paint with cotton buds and manipulate play dough with their hands to help them to build the muscles they need for early writing.
• Children understand familiar routines, and staff have high expectations for all children. This results in happy, active children who have a positive attitude to learning. However, staff do not consistently encourage the quieter or less confident children in large-group activities to share their ideas and knowledge.
• Staff who care for babies know them well. They provide them with warm interactions and repeat their babbles and words to encourage their communication. They playfully play peek-a-boo with the younger babies, who respond with smiles and laughter. Staff count the number of scoops as they fill containers with sand and demonstrate how to turn the containers upside down and tap them, so the sand comes out to make sandcastles. This encourages children to explore and investigate and supports an early interest in numbers.
• Children's behaviour is good. They show empathy and concern for others. For example, they help each other to fill small watering cans of water to ensure that they are all included in watering the vegetable patch in the nursery garden.
• The provider ensures that all staff's views are included when evaluating and adapting the provision to best meet children's needs. Staff are encouraged to develop their knowledge and are provided with good opportunities for training. For example, staff have completed a targeted programme to help boost children's language skills. This has helped staff focus on supporting those children who are not achieving their expected levels of progress in their language development. Consequently, this has helped to narrow the gap between them and their peers so that all children make good progress.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide more opportunities for older children to link sounds to letters
• develop further strategies to encourage quieter or less confident children to contribute more to large-group times to support their communication and language further.