Sunrise Nursery School Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this nurturing and caring environment. They enter excited and enthusiastic to learn. Staff focus on building strong relationships with the children and families in their care. This helps all children to feel settled and secure in their surroundings.

Staff provide the children with a range of stimulating activities intended to support children's imagination and language skills. Two-year olds explore a range of different items, such as jar lids, cardboard tubes and plastic bottles. They use their imagination as they pretend the tubes are 'binoculars' or the lids are 'glasses'. Babies giggle as they splash in the water tray. Staff narrate their play and sing songs like 'Three Little Ducks', which helps to develop children's early communication and language skills. Older children explore a wide range of creative materials. They use their critical-thinking skills to determine how to make their ideas come to life. The children proudly share their creations with staff and peers. Staff praise their efforts, creating a sense of achievement and a positive attitude to learning.

Children play well alongside each other. They listen to each other's thoughts and ideas. For example, the children work as a team to build a long assault course. They lift planks of wood and place them on the ground. The children discuss where the next piece of wood should go, navigating them through and around play equipment. They balance on the beams and say, 'look at me', while holding each other's hands. This enables children to develop their social skills and form friendships with peers.

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

• The manager and her team have created a curriculum that is tailored to meet the needs of the children in their care. They focus on supporting children to become independent, confident and social beings. Staff plan activities based on children's current interests and their next stages of learning. They skilfully interact with the children to extend their knowledge past what they already know. Therefore, children make clear progress across all seven areas of learning.
• Staff develop children's early mathematical skills. They demonstrate counting to babies and use mathematical language such as big and small. Two-year olds can recognise numbers and shapes by name. They use words such as more, lots and heavy. However, staff do not consistently extend older children's mathematical knowledge further to include concepts such as halves and quarters.
• Parents state that staff 'go above and beyond' for the children in their care. Staff provide detailed feedback on children's progress, their next stages of learning and how parents can further support children at home. Parents praise the dedicated manager and her team for their continued support and guidance. Their children come home happy and excited to tell them about their day.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) make good progress in their learning. The manager and staff make effective use of additional funding to provide appropriate support and resources for individual children. Staff work closely with other professionals and parents to create strategies to help children access the curriculum and make progress in their learning.
• Staff praise the dedicated manager for her continued support and feedback. They enjoy working as a team, resulting in a high level of staff retention. Staff receive regular supervision meetings to discuss their practice and professional development. The manager and her team continuously reflect on the care they provide and have created a clear plan to continue developing the nursery.
• All children participate in physical play. Staff encourage the children to listen and follow simple instructions. They try to wake up their bodies as they stretch 'high to the sky' and 'low down to the toes'. All children dance and move their bodies to the music and nursery rhymes, such as 'Head, shoulders, knees and toes'. This supports their overall health and well-being.
• Staff support children to keep their bodies healthy. They teach them the importance of good hygiene practices and how to do things for themselves, such as going to the toilet, washing their hands and wiping their noses. Staff provide children with healthy meals and snacks. However, at times, staff miss opportunities to further children's understanding of healthy diets. For example, when children role play making a 'caramel sandwich and a lettuce sandwich', staff do not discuss with the children the impact of healthy and unhealthy food choices. As a result, children do not consistently gain an understanding of healthy lifestyles.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• extend and reinforce children's understanding of mathematical concepts to develop their mathematical skills even more
• make use of opportunities during children's play to help them to understand how to make healthy choices.