Sunrise Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy spending time in this warm, welcoming and stimulating environment. They settle well and display high levels of engagement. Staff are friendly, caring and attentive. Children build strong and trusting relationships with the staff who know them well. This helps children to feel safe and secure. Children have positive attitudes to learning and confidently explore the environment with interest and curiosity. For example, outside, they excitedly tell visitors they have found a slug, explaining 'It's like a snail, but without a shell.' They splash in puddles and then fill them with mud to make 'pies'.

Children are extremely sociable and mature communicators. They are friendly to visitors and confidently introduce themselves and explain what they are doing. For example, they are keen to explain the rules of the card game they are playing and who is winning. Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and they are good role models. Children learn to share and take turns. They are kind and polite and ask their friends if they can play with the resources after they have finished playing with them. Children enjoy using a range of craft materials to foster their creativity. Outside, children throw and catch balls, balance across tyres, and pedal themselves around in ride-on cars, helping to support their physical development.

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

• The provider, who is also the manager, is a strong leader. She works closely with her enthusiastic staff team to provide high-quality care and education for all children. The manager is very reflective and constantly strives to improve the outcomes for all the children. She liaises with staff to create development plans for improvements. For example, plans are in place to further enhance children's experiences in the outside area.
• The manager knows the strengths of her team and how she can support staff to continue to build on these. She encourages staff to undertake additional training to continually enhance their knowledge and skills. Staff report their well-being is considered well. They say they feel valued and enjoy their roles. This positive attitude helps to create a happy atmosphere at the nursery.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported extremely well. The special educational needs coordinator works closely with parents and external professionals to swiftly provide children with the additional help and support they need. Additional funding is used effectively to meet children's individual needs. As a result, all children make good progress in their development.
• The manager and staff support children's communication and language skills effectively. They encourage children to engage in back-and-forth conversations, showing genuine interest in what they have to say. Staff introduce new words and sensitively repeat words back to children, so they hear the correct pronunciation. Children naturally engage in conversations to confidently share their thoughts and ideas with staff and each other.
• The staff team promote children's independence well. They teach children to manage self-help tasks for themselves. For example, children put on their coats and shoes, hang their coats on their named pegs, pour their own drinks and feed themselves at mealtimes. Children develop knowledge of good hygiene routines. For example, they know they must wash their hands before eating.
• Overall, the staff team plan well for children's learning and all children make good progress from their starting points. Children experience a broad curriculum, helping them to make progress in all areas of learning and develop the skills they need for starting school. However, on occasions, staff do not ensure they identify precise learning intentions for planned adult-led activities. As a result, learning at these times does not incisively focus on what it is children need to learn next to help them make the most progress.
• The staff team use assessment to identify where children are in their development and what they need to know and do next. Through an online system, staff provide parents with information about their children's experiences. However, staff do not consistently provide parents with information about their children's progress to help them to further support and extend children's learning at home.
• Parents and carers speak highly of the caring and friendly staff. They advise that staff get to know each child well and children are happy to spend time at the nursery. Parents and carers comment that staff consider the individual needs of children and provide good support for children and families

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve the planning of adult-led activities to focus more precisely on targeted learning intentions, to help children make the best possible progress
• strengthen processes for sharing information about children's learning and development with parents to help them support and extend their children's learning at home.