The Beacon Day Nursery and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and practitioners offer an extremely welcoming nursery where all children and their families feel fully included and valued. Practitioners uphold the highest expectations and aspirations for all children. This approach, together with an exceptionally well-designed curriculum, helps to ensure that children constantly acquire knowledge and skills. The nursery is a hive of activity and children show a great enthusiasm for having a go at challenging tasks or finding out something new. For example, pre-school children show high levels of perseverance as staff encourage them to try different ways to complete more-complex puzzles.

Practitioners play alongside children. They inspire children's ideas and create many opportunities for them to follow these through. For example, children explore their passion for baking by sharing recipe suggestions with the setting's chef. Practitioners foster the involvement of the younger toddlers by offering pictures of foods for them to choose from.

Practitioners know children exceptionally well. Children flourish because of their strong emotional attachments to staff. Practitioners are particularly attentive to children's individual behavioural needs. Across the nursery, children benefit from the practitioners' high expectations of their behaviour. Children thrive on the praise offered by practitioners and take pride in caring for toys and equipment. There is an extremely calm and reassuring approach within the nursery. This helps all babies and children to feel extremely safe and settled.

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

• Leaders demonstrate a passionate commitment to providing the highest possible quality of care for children. Since the last inspection, they carefully reviewed and adapted the available space and resources to create a vibrant, inviting, and accessible learning environment for each age group. This is particularly successful in strengthening younger children's independence and their concentration skills.
• Practitioners know exactly what they want children to achieve, ready for the next stage in their development. They skilfully tailor their interactions with children to build on previous learning. For example, when toddlers say that they have been on a train, practitioners inspire children to reposition chairs to make a train in the nursery. They seize every opportunity to model language, introduce British Sign Language, and enhance children's vocabulary during this imaginative play.
• Leaders encourage practitioners to share their passions and expertise with the children. This helps to ignite children's curiosity and interest, and introduces children to an even wider range of rich experiences. For example, babies watch with wonder as practitioners play an accordion. They begin to dance to express their enjoyment of the sounds they can hear. Practitioners explain how they are using the musical instrument to extend children's understanding. After a short time, everyone in the room shares in the joy of listening to the music together.
• Practitioners who work with babies are alert to the physical and emotional needs of the youngest children and tailor their care superbly to suit these. For example, they initiate calm activities and close interactions with babies to help them to understand when it is time to prepare for a sleep.
• Practitioners encourage children to make positive choices about their behaviour. For example, when children struggle to share a toy car, staff empower them to consider how to resolve the situation. Children show excellent levels of respect for one another as they initiate the use of a timer and check if anyone else would like a go before setting it up to take turns.
• There is a particularly strong focus on promoting children's well-being. For example, practitioners lead meditation and mindfulness activities with pre-school children. Children listen intently as practitioners skilfully prompt them to imagine a walk along the beach. Children respond with highly imaginative and detailed accounts of their thoughts and feelings, and demonstrate the excellent connections they make in their experiences.
• Practitioners show an unquestionable commitment to working with parents to support children's progress. Leaders go above and beyond to organise events and information sessions, which help with bringing parents together and sharing information about the curriculum. For example, many parents attend a practical workshop to learn more about how they can support their children's readiness for school.
• Leaders have excellent oversight of the nursery. Practitioner performance is closely monitored. Leaders value and show high levels of respect for practitioners and their well-being. This helps to motivate practitioners to share the new and innovative ideas they gather from training and to inspire each other to excel in their work with children.