The Hunny Pot Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are excited to attend this nurturing and enriching setting. They are highly motivated to learn and eagerly join thoughtfully planned activities. For example, they watch with awe as staff encourage them to use pipettes to squeeze different food colourings onto bread and then toast it themselves to make rainbow toast for their morning snack.

Children's independence is a priority as staff encourage them to take responsibility for keeping themselves safe and healthy. For example, the children model the staff's actions as they wear high-visibility waistcoats and use clipboards to risk assess their outdoor area following the rain. They continue their assessments inside as they use mirrors to check their runny noses, access tissues, dispose of them and then sanitise their hands routinely. Children are praised by staff for being responsible, and this sometimes is further developed as part of a reward system where children can earn 'Hunny Money'.

Children spend time laughing with staff as they chase escaping water balls across the floor, having spilt them from the containers they were using to fill and empty. They develop a positive attitude to learning as they think of ways to extend their own play and are supported by staff to do this. For example, they move from using building blocks to create houses to creating enclosures for the small-world animals while using new vocabulary, such as 'habitats'.

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

• Staff have detailed knowledge about the children in their care. They use the information from children's starting points in development and their observations to plan a highly sequenced curriculum that builds on what children know and can do.
• Staff provide a multitude of activities to enable children to develop their small-muscle skills. This supports their readiness for early writing. Staff role model a glitter mark-making activity excitedly, so toddlers are curious and join them to engage in play, using their fingers to draw shapes and copying the adult.
• Children benefit from very positive interactions with staff, who actively develop children's skills over time. The curriculum for physical development is highly ambitious. Staff use their spacious outdoor areas expertly well to provide activities that have a positive impact on children's physical health. During an adult-led balance bicycle activity, children are able to recall their previous attempts at using cones to negotiate a course. Staff then add cones to further develop children's large-muscle skills to move through the course in a new way.
• Staff actively engage children in their daily routines that are established throughout the setting. Children demonstrate a good awareness of what comes next and this enables them to predict relevant activities, such as handwashing before lunch. Children support their peers in these activities and patiently wait their turn to use the toilets and sinks.
• Staff are excellent role models. They spend time with children in the sand areas in all rooms, demonstrating how to pour, build and empty sand with even the youngest children. Children are confident to copy actions and there is obvious enjoyment as they succeed and receive appropriate praise.
• Children benefit from ongoing dialogue with adults in the setting. Staff talk to the children at every available opportunity and are skilled at allowing for valuable two-way conversations to take place. Children are confident to ask questions and staff ask open-ended questions that are thought-provoking to the children.
• Children are offered a range of opportunities that promote reading and the love of books. Story time and circle time take place in each room and, as a result, concentration levels are excellent. Older children are confident at retelling stories in their own words. Parents are encouraged to borrow books from the setting and are also signposted to the local library as an additional resource in support of reading with their children at home.
• Partnership with parents is very effective. Parents are overwhelmingly positive. They state that they benefit from regular updates and receive ongoing support on how to support learning at home. Parents of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) feel well supported and are grateful for the links between the setting and external agencies. They state that without the support of the setting their child would not be thriving and making friends.
• The experienced and hardworking leaders are extremely effective at providing a professional development programme for the staff. This is well received by the staff. Staff are given opportunities to develop their knowledge and skills through regular updating that supports their own targets set during a robust appraisal process.