Sunflower Nurseries Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide good support for children's emotional well-being. They create supportive and nurturing environments. Staff provide comfort and attention during challenging times, such as when children experience separation anxiety or emotional distress. This helps children to feel a sense of security. Staff promote children's physical well-being. They encourage healthy habits and active lifestyles. Children play outdoors everyday and enjoy eating healthy fruits for snack. This contributes to children's overall well-being.

Staff support children to develop positive attitudes to their learning. They create engaging and supportive environments. Staff use praise, encouragement and interactive activities to motivate children. Children show an enthusiasm for learning. This helps children to develop a love for learning and enhances their curiosity.

The curriculum is ambitious and inclusive. It helps every child, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), to make good progress in their learning and development. Staff provide targeted support and tailor activities to meet the diverse needs of all children. This helps children from all backgrounds to feel a sense of achievement and prepares them effectively for their next stages in learning.

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

• Children with SEND are well supported in the nursery. Staff set individual goals for children and work closely with their parents and carers. Staff liaise with other professionals and implement any expert advice. This helps to meet the care and education needs of children with SEND well.
• Leaders enhance the quality of education and ensure that staff are continuously improving their practice. They provide targeted training and development opportunities and support staff to engage in peer observations. This helps staff to improve their interactions and communication with children.
• Staff teach children about equality and diversity as part of the curriculum. For example, they make resources freely available to children that represent different cultures and explain what they mean. However, staff do not consistently consider how to promote children's own heritage. This means that all children do not have the same opportunities to learn about what makes them unique.
• Staff develop children's communication and language skills effectively. Staff use strategies appropriate to the developmental stage of children. For example, they use descriptive language, simple sentences and commentary. This helps children to develop good communication and language skills.
• Staff build good relationships with parents. They engage with parents through stay-and-play sessions, parents evenings, daily conversations and an online platform. The effective collaboration between staff and parents helps children to benefit from a consistent approach to meeting their care and education needs.
• Overall, staff support children's learning and development well. However, they do not always consider children's individual abilities in some group activities. These means on these occasions, some children do not engage in deep learning and other children are distracted.
• Staff provide a sequenced curriculum to progressively help children to develop skills from babies to pre-school. For example, they encourage babies to hold spoons. Toddlers build on these skills by feeding themselves and pre-school children further enhance their independence by chopping their own fruit at snack time. This helps to build children's confidence in their own abilities and enhances their independence.
• Staff offer a secure educational programme to develop children's physical skills. Babies learn how to crawl and stand. Toddlers use their hand strength to squirt bottles. Pre-school children mix mud and use paint rollers to strengthen their muscles. These opportunities help children to develop their gross and fine motor skills, coordination and physical confidence.
• Staff promote positive behaviour and attitudes. They use strategies such as 'golden rules', emotion cards and praise to encourage good behaviour. Staff role model positive interactions and provide clear expectations to children. This helps children to learn about positive social interactions and promotes a respectful learning environment.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance the curriculum to help children learn about what makes them unique and celebrate individual children's heritage and culture
• develop teaching to ensure that staff consider children's differing abilities in all group activities.