The Little Penguins Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and secure and enjoy the time they spend at the nursery. They are well behaved and clearly understand what the staff expect from them. Children have good social skills and readily involve adults and other children in their play. Children are considerate of their friends and learn to express how they feel. For example, during group activities staff use stories about emotions to encourage children to share their feelings. They take turns to tell each other how they feel today and discuss how they can make their friends happy, giving hugs to those who are feeling sad. This helps the children to manage their feelings confidently.

Babies explore a variety of different sensory materials. They are happy and content, and enjoy building their confidence to walk and pull themselves up. Younger children develop their language and communication skills. Staff provide songs and books with recurrent phrases and rhymes to support children's expanding vocabulary. Older children learn about letters and sounds and can identify letters in their names. This contributes to the development of their literacy skills.

Staff support children's confidence in their ability to handle everyday tasks, and help them achieve high levels of independence. Children enjoy serving themselves at mealtimes and assist one another in turn. Throughout the day, children talk about the foods they can see and enjoy meals, snacks, and drinks that are balanced in terms of nutrients.

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

• Staff make good use of familiar songs and books to promote children's communication and language development. Children happily join in with the story and recall the main events. This is helping the children to develop a love of reading.
• There is a clear focus on children's speech and language development. Staff have been working hard to identify children who need extra support at the earliest opportunity. They implement effective strategies that support children to communicate. This helps them to progress well in this area.
• Overall, leaders create a curriculum that builds on what children know and can do. Assessments are accurate, and gaps in children's learning close. However, staff do not always tailor activities to meet the individual learning needs of all children to help them to make the best progress possible.
• Leaders use the information they gather on children to plan new experiences that benefit all children that attend. The nursery has invested in physical equipment as well as planning more trips out to places of interest, such as nature reserves. These opportunities greatly support and embed children's developing physical skills, and provide children with the knowledge and skills for what comes next.
• Staff feel happy in their roles. They receive a range of professional development opportunities to help deepen their knowledge. However, the manager does not always monitor the impact this has on staff practice. This means that the quality of practice is not consistent across the team.
• Partnerships with parents are highly effective. Staff know the families well, and parents are appreciative of their support and guidance. Parents say 'it is an inclusive and happy place where everyone is welcomed and encouraged to thrive'. They receive regular updates about their children's progress and their next steps in learning. These successful partnerships enable parents to support their children's learning at home.
• Children develop a good understanding of the world around them. Staff plan exciting events and celebrations based around the diversity of the children in the setting. For example, they display the different celebrations and talk about this at group times. This helps the children to learn about different cultures, faiths and beliefs.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are well supported. Leaders ensure good relationships with other involved professionals, including making referrals to other agencies when needed. This helps to ensure that children receive the support that they need. Consequently, children with SEND achieve well and their needs are met.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop the quality of teaching to help strengthen the focus on what individual children need to learn
• monitor the effectiveness of staff's professional development to raise the quality of practice to a high level.