Sunflowers Nursery Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children receive a warm welcome when they arrive at this nurturing and inclusive nursery. Staff get to know children well before they start by providing as many settling-in sessions as necessary, depending on each individual child's needs. Children form strong relationships with staff and feel able to ask for help when needed. Staff respond quickly to children's needs, providing support or reassurance. As a result, children feel happy, confident and safe to explore the setting.

Children engage in age-appropriate learning activities, which staff plan with children's interests and learning needs in mind. For example, babies explore different textures and develop their hand-eye coordination as they use scoops to play with oats. Staff show toddlers how to mould play dough with rolling pins, developing the muscles in their hands and arms. Older children develop their imaginative skills by using more-advanced utensils to make marks in dough, pretending to make cakes and cookies. This careful sequencing of skills throughout the nursery supports children to make good progress.

Children develop their physical skills in carefully designed outdoor spaces. They learn about how to keep fit and healthy. Staff consistently teach children how to share and take turns. As a result, children behave well and show respect for themselves and others. Staff support children with their listening and attention skills. They give clear instructions and communicate how they expect the children to sit and listen. This supports children to learn the skills that they need when they move on to school.

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

• The managers have developed their curriculum to provide a wide range of experiences. For example, staff arrange for animals to visit the setting, and children learn about life cycles by incubating and hatching ducklings. They learn about the people who help them in the community with visits from the police and the fire brigade. Children benefit from these extra-curricular opportunities.
• Staff use an online application to share information with parents about what their children are doing in the setting. They explain what the provided activities are intending to teach children. As a result, parents feel very well informed. Staff provide 'lending sacks' with toys and books linked to children's individual interests to support parents to extend children's learning at home.
• Staff plan learning activities that are based on children's interests. This helps children to develop positive attitudes towards learning. However, staff are not consistent in how they evaluate what the children are gaining from the activities. This impacts on how well some staff assess what the children need to learn next.
• On the whole, staff interact well with children to help them develop their communication skills. However, at times, they miss opportunities to introduce new words and widen children's vocabulary.
• Staff support children to manage their emotions exceptionally well. They provide a 'calm corner' for children to use when they are feeling overwhelmed. They help children to begin to label and understand emotions by explaining them through play. For example, they have a toy zebra that is worried, a monkey that is happy, a horse that is angry and a dog that is sad. This exposure to emotional vocabulary helps children to understand and identify these core emotions in themselves and others.
• The experienced special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) works with the rest of the team to identify when children may need extra support. She trains staff to use different strategies with particular children to help them access the same education as their peers. She refers children for support from external professionals when needed and works with parents to ensure that all children make the best possible progress.
• The managers are very reflective and are always looking for ways to improve the setting. They use additional funding effectively and monitor its impact. They provide supervision sessions for all staff and support them to develop professionally. They understand the importance of staff well-being and recently enabled a member of staff to become a mental health lead for the setting. Staff feel valued, and retention levels are excellent.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• introduce and model new and interesting vocabulary at a consistently high level to extend children's language skills
• support staff to focus more closely on evaluating the impact of the curriculum to consistently plan for children's next steps.