The Corner House Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a nurturing, homely and welcoming environment for children and families. As children arrive, they quickly settle with support from their key person. Leaders provide an ambitious curriculum. Staff consider and plan for children's interests and communicate regularly with parents and carers to ensure that there is a strong partnership between home and nursery. This has a good impact on children's overall development.

Children feel safe and secure. They cooperatively play with one another and create games and entice their peers into conversations. In pre-school, children talk joyously with one another as they make their own play dough. They test out their ideas to make the dough mouldable. They use words such as 'gloopy' and 'sticky' to describe the texture of the dough and identify that more flour is needed. Across the nursery, staff have been on recent training to improve the quality of communication and language opportunities available. This is beneficial for babies and children, including those who speak English as an additional language, who learn new vocabulary.

There are high expectations for children's behaviour and conduct, which is applied consistently and fairly across all age groups. Children are polite and friendly with one another. They are beginning to manage their own feelings and behaviours, understanding how these have an impact on their peers. On most occasions, children can solve any small disagreements, using negotiation and collaboration. When children are unable to manage this independently, staff swiftly intervene to offer guidance.

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

• Leaders act with integrity to ensure that staff feel valued and supported in their roles. Staff talk positively about the opportunities they have to further their knowledge and skills during their supervision meetings, which they feel positively impacts on the quality of their interactions with children.
• Parents speak highly of the nursery. They feel included in their children's learning and have regular access to developmental updates. Parents praise staff and managers and feel that they are integral to the success of the nursery. Parents describe the setting as 'warm', 'inclusive' and 'nurturing'.
• Children have a love of books and learn new words during storytelling, such as 'disgusted' and 'delightful'. These keywords are then practised in different contexts throughout the day to embed new knowledge. However, some staff are more skilled than others in providing greater depth in conversations, which means that this is not always as consistent as it could be in maximising children's potential.
• Children build on what they know and can do. They enjoy using mathematical concepts, such as measuring and counting, in their play. They use buckets, spades and moulds in damp sand, working both together and individually. This builds children's mathematical development, confidence and turn-taking skills.
• Babies are a delight. They enjoy getting involved in stacking blocks, and staff praise their achievements. Staff promote good-quality experiences to strengthen the babies' rapidly increasing gross motor skills. Staff use language to explain what is happening. For example, they ask, 'Is he hiding?' as they get involved and hide with babies under the table. Babies laugh at their key persons and enjoy the back-and-forth interactions.
• Children model good behaviours during small-group activities in the toddler and pre-school rooms. They listen attentively and respond with comprehension. They are polite and wait their turn, putting their hands up when they want to contribute.
• Children have plenty of opportunities for developing their self-help skills. They self-serve at mealtimes, take part in dressing routines and are encouraged to look after themselves and their peers. On occasions, there are some minor weaknesses whereby children are not consistently able to access tissues they need to wipe their noses. This reduces the impact of the ambition for children to learn independence.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well. Staff have plans in place for children who require additional support to ensure that they make progress in their learning.
• The nursery encourages families to take part in storytelling by reading books in their home language. Children delight in this experience. This supports children who speak English as an additional language and helps children to identify what makes them unique.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop consistency across the nursery to ensure that the children are able to practise their independence skills
• provide further opportunities for staff to develop their knowledge and skills to further enhance the good-quality interactions available to children.