The Parade Day Nursery ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and excited to attend nursery. In the baby room, staff provide sensitive support to children and focus on building positive relationships with them. When children need reassurance, they go to staff who welcome them with open arms and cuddles. Older children rush inside their room and are keen to engage with the activities on offer.

Children develop their physical skills. They race around the garden on tricycles, supported by staff who show them how to use the pedals. Later, children ask to practise balancing, staff respond to this request and set up balancing stones. Staff support children who need more help by holding their hands. When children reach the end without falling off, they jump up and down with joy and show a beaming smile to staff and visitors to the setting. Staff praise children for having a go and have high expectations of what children can do.

Staff are skilled at introducing areas of mathematical development into children's play. During snack time, they ask children to count how many pieces of banana they have. They address misconceptions when they occur. For example, when children say a triangle is a circle, staff find the correct shape to show them. Staff then show children their snack bowl is a circle shape, to support this learning further.

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

• Leaders and managers have taken the necessary steps to make improvements. Staff now have a secure understanding of how to report safeguarding concerns in line with local authority safeguarding partnership guidance. They know what to do if an allegation is made against a member of staff. An effective key-person system is in place. Staff now understand effective ways to support children's behaviour in a positive way.
• Staff support children to develop a healthy lifestyle. They ensure children spend time outside everyday, whether in the outside area at the nursery or by visiting the local park. Staff make sure children wash their hands before eating and explain this is to stop germs from spreading. Children brush their teeth as part of the daily routine and staff talk to them about the importance of keeping their teeth clean so they are healthy. Children enjoy the freshly prepared, nutritious meals prepared by the cook. They share with visitors to the setting about how much they like the rice pudding for dessert.
• Staff support children to engage well in meaningful learning. Children sustain their interest and enjoyment for periods of time. However, transitions during the day, such as snack time and lunch time, are not organised effectively. Sometimes, this means children are not sure what they should be doing or are left to wait for activities to start. This means for short periods of time, children become disengaged.
• Staff understand how they want children to be independent and how this will support children to be well prepared when the time comes to go to school. In the younger age rooms, children learn to take off their own shoes and hand out bowls to their friends at snack time. However, in the pre-school room, children are not as independent. They take their coats off and hand them to staff to put away. Children do not always have the opportunity to have a go at tasks for themselves, as staff do things for them.
• Staff interact with children as they play. Children begin to copy and say 'go' as staff press the button down on a toy car that zooms across the floor and say 'ready, steady, go'. However, at times, staff do not support children to develop the correct pronunciation of words. When children ask for a 'nana' instead of a banana at snack time, staff repeat the word back to children incorrectly. As a result, children are learning to say some words incorrectly.
• Funding is used effectively to meet children's needs. Staff consider what different experiences they can provide for children or any additional resources that may meet their needs. For example, groups of children visit forest school. These sessions expand on the opportunities children have.
• There are positive relationships between parents and staff. Parents are happy with the communication they receive from the nursery. The nursery offers regular stay-and-play sessions for parents to come into the nursery, talk to staff and enjoy different activities with their children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the organisation of daily transitions to support children's consistent engagement in learning
• support older children to develop their independence skills even further
• develop children's communication and language skills by ensuring staff use the correct pronunciation of words when speaking.