Sunnyside Daycare and After School Club

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are well cared for in an inclusive, safe and welcoming environment. Babies and children thoroughly enjoy the time they spend in the nursery and with their friends. Staff are experienced and help children to form good, secure emotional attachments. They promote children's confidence and sense of belonging very well. Staff understand how children learn and provide them with a stimulating and well-planned learning environment. For example, they plan some group activities that encourage children to sing their favourite songs in front of their friends and listen to stories. Babies enjoy free access to a good selection of toys and resources to enhance their independence and freedom to make choices.

Older children show by their actions that they understand the nursery's rules and boundaries for their behaviour. For example, staff remind children to be careful during their play, not to run indoors and to be kind to each other. Children learn to share and take turns, and they behave very well. Staff promote children's listening, attention and communication skills effectively. For instance, staff use puppets and props and encourage older children to discuss different emotions and talk about how they feel. Babies are purposefully exposed to gentle sounds in the environment, such as musical instruments and interactive toys. Staff provide lots of experiences that cover all areas of the curriculum and prepare children for their future learning successfully.

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

• Overall, staff's teaching is of a good standard, and children make consistent progress from their starting points in development. This includes children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those children in receipt of additional funding. Staff have a good understanding of children's individual needs and interests. They carefully observe and assess what children have achieved and plan a range of interesting activities. However, staff do not always use what they know about children to plan as well as possible for children's next steps in learning.
• Children are inquisitive and keen to learn new things. For example, babies demonstrate curiosity as they crawl, push, pull and press parts of interactive toys to discover what might happen. Staff plan messy play activities throughout the nursery. Older children explore soil, paint, wood shavings and dough. However, staff do not always ensure that children are fully engaged in all activities. Some children lose interest and move from one activity to the next and miss learning opportunities.
• Staff provide children with regular praise and reassurance for their efforts and achievements. This increases children's good behaviour and emotional well-being successfully. Children move confidently, both indoors and when in the garden. They develop good physical skills as they handle a range of simple tools and resources. For example, children dig and plant seeds, and they learn to balance as they walk across a low-level beam. They practise making marks with different-sized paintbrushes, crayons and chalks indoors and in the garden.
• Staff set good examples for children by practising effective hygiene routines. They also use props and visuals to make stories about brushing teeth exciting for the children. Staff demonstrate the importance of oral health and hygiene. This helps children to develop a better understanding of healthy practices.
• Senior leaders and staff have developed positive partnerships with parents and other professionals in the area. The managers are well informed about local services that can support parents, such as strategies to help children with their speech and language, potty training at home and reducing the use of dummies. This ensures that children have consistency in their learning experiences.
• Senior leaders use self-evaluation effectively. They value the opinions of staff, parents and children in this process. Presently, senior leaders are contemplating the idea of investing in a covered area that would make the outdoors accessible to children in all weather conditions.
• The nursery manager supervises staff extremely well to ensure they have a thorough understanding of their roles and responsibilities. She ensures that staff are given regular opportunities to undergo professional development. Additionally, staff have collaborated with specialists to create engaging reading areas that promote children's literacy and communication skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• make precise use of assessments to plan even more opportunities to support children's individual next steps in learning
• develop strategies to help children to focus on activities and concentrate for longer periods of time.