The Honey Pot Private Day Nursery (Burton Joyce) Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children happily leave their parents at the nursery door. They are greeted by the friendly and welcoming staff team. Children quickly settle into their play. They are familiar with the routines, which are promoted and implement well by the staff. Children explore the good range of toys, activities and resources in this home-from-home nursery environment. They are happy, well behaved and enjoy their time at the nursery.

Children make good progress in their learning because staff have high expectations of them. Staff plan activities that build on the interests of children to encourage them to be curious, investigate and have a go. For example, pre-school children show good levels of concentration during a cutting activity. They persevere using their small muscle skills to hold and use scissors to cut paper and flowers. They proudly show off their success to visitors. Children, from a young age, demonstrate their independence skills well. Babies select toys of their choice and feed themselves at mealtimes. Toddlers pull up their own sleeves ready to use serving spoons. They scoop out the food from bowls and try to put the food on their own plates. Pre-school children pour their own drinks, serve themselves confidently and cut up their own food before eating.

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

• Staff have effective partnerships with parents, which have a positive impact on the progress that children make. Parents are supported by staff with ideas to continue to help their child's learning at home. They comment on how they value the continuity of care for their children from the well-established team. Parents comment that staff help their children to be ready for the next stage of learning, including starting school.
• The special educational needs coordinator understands her role well. She works effectively with other agencies and staff in the nursery to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. These children have individual plans for staff to follow. They are offered focused support by staff as they learn during their play and the general routines of the day.
• The key-person role is effective. Staff make sure that babies and young children are well cared for and have the attention and support that they need. For example, when children start at the nursery, staff sensitively work with them to provide the necessary support, personal comforts and play activities. As a result, these children settle quickly at the nursery.
• The owner/manager and her management team have a clear vision of what they want the children to learn. Overall, most staff understand how to implement their vision of an ambitious curriculum. However, at times, some staff are not clear on how to implement the curriculum to support the learning intentions for all children. As a result, some children are not always learning as much as they can.
• Staff plan age-appropriate activities for children. However, they focus too much on planning an activity rather than what individual children need to learn next. Consequently, some children are not provided with tailored activities to support the next steps in their learning.
• Children show enthusiasm as they happily engage with staff and show good levels of concentration in their play. For example, in the pre-school room, children develop their mathematical and small-muscle skills well. They use pipettes to fill different-sized containers with water. They confidently count how many squeezes of the pipette it takes to fill the containers.
• Overall, children's communication and language development are supported well. Babies babble and mirror sounds and simple words that staff speak. Toddlers begin to join words together to form short sentences. Pre-school children who are confident, share their ideas and thoughts during circle time. However, children who are less confident and quieter are not always encouraged by staff to join in with these conversations. Therefore, these children miss out on some learning experiences.
• Children have a positive attitude to their learning. They play cooperatively, take turns, and share toys and recourses well. Staff are good role models and help children to understand how to be kind to their friends.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• improve how staff implement the curriculum to support the learning intentions for children, so that they learn as much as they can
• refine the planning of activities so that they are more-precisely tailored to support individual children's learning
• help staff to identify when to engage more with quieter and less-confident children so they receive the same level of support as their more-confident peers.