The Hunny Bear Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are supported well by staff. For example, staff learn sign language and use this to communicate with children. All children are encouraged to develop a love of books. In the toddler room, children squeal with excitement when they act out stories with staff, pretending to be bears as they stomp across grass and into a pretend forest. In the pre-school room, children concentrate and focus when staff use animation in their voice as they read familiar stories. They learn about the author and illustrator and join in with repeated phrases and favourite songs in books. Children in the toddler room show their early writing skills and imagination. For example, they make marks on paper and tell staff that they need apples and bananas when they are asked to write a shopping list.

Children in the baby and toddler rooms are reminded of behavioural expectations. For example, staff remind babies to use their 'kind hands' when they reach for others, and they ask toddlers to use their 'walking feet' indoors. Children are supported to identify and manage risks in the environment. For instance, staff ask children in the pre-school room to carry out safety checks in the garden to help to identify potential hazards. Children tell visitors that they are looking for 'weeds and animal poo'.

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

• Older children behave very well. For example, during group times, they understand to raise their hands if they want to answer questions. When staff ask them to remember the rules and boundaries at group times, children say that they must use their eyes for looking and that they must sit on their bottoms and cross their legs. When staff ask children why they need to put their hands on their legs, children reply, 'So we can concentrate.'
• When staff plan activities for children, they show a clear understanding of what they want children to learn to help build on their development. However, at times, staff working with babies do not fully promote their interests and curiosity during self-chosen play. For example, when children want to slide down a low-level wooden car ramp, staff tell them that it is not a slide and help them to move off the equipment.
• The management team and staff introduce strategies that help children with their self-care skills. Staff regularly remind children to use the toilet and reward their achievements when they succeed. For example, they give children stickers, a medal and a certificate. This contributes to helping to close gaps in this aspect of learning that have arisen due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the COVID- 19 pandemic, the manager and staff also introduced a 'potty academy' to encourage children to learn how to use the potty and toilet.
• Staff support children to learn skills for the future, such as being independent. For example, staff in the baby room attach children's photos to their drink bottles to enable them to select their own.
• The manager liaises with children's parents to help to identify how to use additional funding that their children receive. For example, the money is spent on purchasing books to support children's language development and on equipment to help to develop children's core strength.
• Staff invite children in the pre-school room to talk about their worries and how they are feeling. Children say that they are worried about going to school and learning to ride a bicycle. Staff help children to manage their emotions. For example, they open a window and ask children to take a deep breath and blow their worries out of the window.
• Staff visit schools that children will attend when they move on. This helps them to find ways to further support children's emotional well-being during this time of transition. The changes they make to practice include helping children in the pre-school room to become more familiar with the lunchtime routine. For example, they take children into a dining room and provide them with a tray to put their cup, cutlery and plate on.
• The manager supports staff through, for instance, supervision and appraisal meetings. However, the strategies used for supporting less-experienced staff working with babies are not yet fully in place. This results in some children not receiving consistently high-quality interactions to help to build on their learning as they play.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff working with babies to promote babies' interests and curiosity during self-chosen play
• strengthen the support given to less-experienced staff working with babies to help to enhance the overall quality of teaching.