Tangent House Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and staff create a warm, welcoming and engaging environment for children. Children arrive at the setting happy and eager to attend. They are greeted by familiar staff, who know them well and support them to settle. Once settled, they enjoy playing with a variety of exciting and well-organised resources suitable to their ages and stages of development. For example, babies enjoy practising their physical skills by climbing into a ball pit. Older children build towers with their friends as they explore construction areas and develop their imaginative play. As children play, staff engage warmly with them, supporting their learning, care routines and individual needs. Parents comment how settled their children are and how they value the support they receive from staff and leaders.

Children play cooperatively and learn how to support each other. Staff model positive behavioural expectations and teach children how to respond to each other politely. Younger children are supported to pass toys to their friends. Older children are taught to use polite language, such as 'please' and 'thank you' at mealtimes. As a result, children are developing the skills they need to develop friendships and show respect to others.

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

• The curriculum offers a wide range of experiences across all areas of learning, with a balance of child-led and adult-led activities. However, the curriculum intent is not always sufficiently well defined to enable staff to be clear about what they want children to learn. As a result, some activities do not always build on previous experiences or promote further learning effectively.
• Staff create an environment that promotes children's language development. They support children by repeating language back to them and commenting as they play. In addition, children hear language as they listen to stories, rhymes and songs. Alongside providing a story and song of the week, staff also make use of routine times, such as handwashing, to sing to the children. Children smile, laugh and join in during these moments. The support given to children supports them to learn new vocabulary and develop their communication skills.
• Overall, staff provide engaging and stimulating activities for the children. They know the children well and support them to make progress towards their milestones. For example, children who are learning to walk are provided with physical equipment, such as walkers and slides to support their physical skills. However, the learning intention for some adult led activities limits opportunities for children to explore and follow their own curiosity. This results in children losing interest and not fully engaging with the activities on offer.
• Children in the nursery are exceptionally well-behaved. Consistent messages about kindness and behaviour are given by staff and understood by children. For example, younger children learn why we need to walk inside and how to share with their friends. Older children learn about taking account of others' views by voting for a story at group time. Children develop friendships, understand others' opinions and learn about fairness.
• Leaders have developed a thorough evaluation system that supports the nursery's ongoing progress. They use feedback from staff and parents to make changes to support children's ongoing progress. For example, the setting has recently strengthened the transition process for children as they move rooms. Leaders ensure staff have even more detailed information for children, which enables them to support children to settle and build new relationships with staff. The consistent evaluation ensures the nursery continues to improve their practice.
• Relationships between parents, staff and leaders are a real strength. A well-established key-person system is in place, which acts as a central point of communication for families. Key staff ensure families are kept up to date with their children's progress daily through written and verbal feedback. In addition, parents are regularly invited into nursery to discuss children's progress and celebrate their achievements.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review and clarify the curriculum intent to ensure it is fully understood by staff and consistently embedded throughout the nursery
• refine the delivery of focused activities to ensure teaching intentions guide rather than limit children's independence and curiosity.