Sunflower Day Care

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff place children and their families at the heart of their work at this welcoming nursery. Children are confident and settle well. They are excited to play with their friends. Children form strong relationships with their key person and the other staff working in the nursery. This helps them to feel safe and secure.

The curriculum is ambitious and builds on what children already know. Children thoroughly enjoy their time in the nursery. Younger children explore shaving foam and paint as they confidently make marks in the tray. Older children play in the construction area. They put on their high-visibility vests and build models with bricks. They use tape measures to see how high the structure is. All children make good progress.

Children behave very well. Staff are excellent role models. They constantly model good manners and how to be kind and courteous when speaking with other adults and children. As a result, children treat each other with respect.

Parents speak highly of this nursery and the staff team. Staff provide them with ideas on how they can support children at home. Staff hold regular parents' workshops. Recently, parents received information about supporting children's emotional regulation.

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

• Managers place a strong focus on supporting staff to understand the expectations of their roles and responsibilities. Staff attend a range of training to improve their professional knowledge. Staff value the support they receive from their colleagues and the management. They work well as a team. Managers take time to recognise individual staff's achievements.
• Children's literacy skills are well supported. Staff provide children with many opportunities to engage in creative activities. This helps children to develop strength and dexterity in their hand and finger muscles in preparation for their early writing. Older children learn to recognise, read and write their names. Children are developing a love of books and enjoy borrowing books from the home lending library.
• Staff encourage children's communication and language development. Children delight as they join in with staff singing familiar action songs. This supports children's growing speech and vocabulary. Staff interactions are strong. They help children to express their feelings and name their emotions. Staff support children's growing empathy by explaining how the other child might feel when supporting children to resolve conflict.
• Staff with responsibility for supporting children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are committed to collaborating with parents and other professionals to ensure that children receive targeted support.
• Staff encourage children to do things for themselves. Children wipe their own noses and put on their coats with support. Staff select children to be the lunchtime 'helpers'. Children delight in having this responsibility, which helps them to feel valued.
• Generally, the learning environments support the intended curriculum well. Children experience a range of activities in different areas and explore a wide range of resources. However, on occasion, some activities are not implemented to the highest level, for example due to the resources provided for children to explore in activities to support their understanding of healthy eating.
• Staff model and support children's learning well. They encourage children to revisit their prior learning. For example, staff encourage children to think about what they have learned about planets. However, at times, particularly during group activities, all children do not benefit from the same positive interactions due to the large size of the groups.
• Parents speak highly of this nursery and the staff team. They express how happy and settled their children are and that they feel well informed about their children's learning and development through regular feedback from staff.
• Effective systems are in place to ensure that children who speak English as an additional language or are bilingual make good progress in both their home language and in English.
• Children have plenty of opportunities to be physically active in the large, well-resourced outdoor area. Children enjoy mixing mud and water to make 'crocodile pie' in the newly developed outdoor kitchen.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• continue to extend staff's knowledge and practice so that teaching is consistently highly effective
• review large-group activities to maximise all children's learning.