The Rowans Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and settle well at this friendly nursery. Staff provide a nurturing and reassuring environment, which enables children to separate easily from their parents. This helps children to feel safe and secure. Children show high levels of curiosity and eagerness to explore the range of activities on offer. Staff plan the activities around children's interests. Younger children sit with staff to listen to familiar stories. Staff use puppets to capture children's attention as they tell the story. Older children make choices from various outfits in the role-play area and use their imagination as they take on the role of a police officer and help their friends. This develops children's awareness of the roles of other people in their community.

Staff promote children's confidence to try things for themselves. Children use scissors safely as they snip paper during an activity. When children encounter difficulties, staff actively encourage them to keep on trying. Staff help children to understand how food can affect their bodies. For example, during lunchtime, they explain that eating their food will give them the energy they need to play. Staff ensure that they give younger children extra care, attention and support. For instance, they check that meals are offered at the appropriate temperature before serving them to children. This ensures that children's safety is well maintained.

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

• The management team and staff plan a curriculum with a clear focus on developing children's knowledge and understanding across all seven areas of learning. Staff identify gaps in children's learning through ongoing assessments and take swift action to close these. Staff work closely with other professionals to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and identify appropriate plans and targets to help them make expected progress.
• Staff attend regular supervision meetings to discuss their key children and any ongoing professional development. Staff access a range of training opportunities that help to build on their professional development. Staff morale is high. They say that they feel valued members of the team.
• Overall, staff embed routines of the day. For example, staff explain to children what is happening next, and children follow the routines for self-care when they wash their hands before mealtimes. However, during mealtime routines and some planned activities, staff are not always fully prepared. As a result, children become restless and disengage from their learning.
• Staff teach children to respect their environment and to develop a sense of responsibility. For example, staff encourage children to help them tidy up before the next part of the day. Older children select what resources they want from what is on offer and return them independently when they have finished playing with them.
• Staff place a strong focus on developing communication and language across the nursery. They ensure that children hear a wide variety of vocabulary to strengthen their language skills. For example, when children explore sensory activities, they introduce words such as 'sticky' and 'soft'. However, at times, staff do not consistently adapt their teaching techniques and allow children enough time to think and respond to questions they ask. For instance, at times, they provide the answer or move the conversation along too quickly before allowing children time to reply. This does not fully enable children to extend their knowledge even further.
• Staff know and understand their community well. They help children to understand the wider world through visits, outings, carnivals and open days. Staff plan activities to help children learn about flowers and how they grow. They build on their understanding of caring for living things and what flowers can be used for, such as celebrations. Children learn about a range of cultural events throughout the year. These purposeful activities enable children to begin to show an interest in life in modern Britain.
• Partnerships with parents are well established. Parents are highly complimentary of the support their children receive from staff. They say that the two-way flow of communication is consistently effective. Parents are well informed about their children's learning and daily routines through discussions and via an online app.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide consistency with how activities and routines are organised to help children remain engaged in their learning
• support staff to build their confidence in their teaching techniques to allow children more time to think and respond and to help extend their knowledge even further.