Tilly Tots Daycare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are welcomed into the warm and nurturing nursery by caring staff. They happily separate from their parents and demonstrate that they feel safe and secure. Children's behaviour is good. Younger children watch and learn from their older peers and confidently join in their play. Older children are caring and considerate as they share toys and offer them support when they drink from a cup. Children create great friendships as they talk about their 'special friends'. They are well mannered and show great respect for the nursery environment as they tidy resources away after use. Children are developing countless skills that will support their understanding of good morals and values.

Children enjoy a wide range of stimulating activities and experiences that support all areas of learning. Younger children immerse their hands into gloop and are mesmerised as they watch it run through their fingers and drip onto a tray. Older children make bird feed and add different ingredients, such as lard, to alter the consistency and texture. They press, roll and mould the mixture to make their desired shape. These learning opportunities help to strengthen children's hand and finger muscles to support their early writing skills.

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

• The staff are passionate and dedicated to providing the best care and learning opportunities for children and their families. They constantly reflect on what is working well and make ongoing adaptions and improvements. Staff attend regular one-to-one meetings and discuss their key children's development and any training they need to support their professional development. They feel very well supported by the manager and say that the nursery is a lovely place to work. This helps staff to have a positive attitude towards supporting children to achieve the best learning outcomes.
• The staff work together to plan and deliver a well-designed curriculum that supports children to acquire the skills that they will need in readiness for school and beyond. They follow children's interests and provide activities that will support them in their next stages of development. As a result, children are motivated to learn more and are making good progress.
• Generally, staff interact well with children and support them so that they enjoy taking part in activities. However, at times, some staff are less aware of when it would be beneficial to extend children's learning or when to allow children to test out their own ideas for themselves. During these times, children's individual learning needs are not always met.
• Staff promote children's communication and language skills well. Children enjoy listening to stories and singing songs and rhymes. Furthermore, they think of other ways to describe the word 'big'. They suggest words such as 'gigantic',
• 'enormous' and 'huge'. This helps to broaden children's knowledge of words and vocabulary.
• Overall, partnerships with parents are good. Parents comment that staff meet their children's emotional and developmental needs well. They are informed of the things that their children do throughout the day and receive termly updates of their children's progress. However, staff are less consistent with providing parents with ideas or suggestions on how they can further support their children's learning at home.
• Staff place a high value on children's opinions and views. For instance, they are involved in the decision-making of the menu and what healthy meals they would like to eat. Furthermore, children create charts and record their votes of what snack they would like and confidently explain how they must go with the majority. This results in children learning to negotiate and compromise in certain situations.
• Staff teach children about the importance of equality and diversity. For example, children talk about different parts of their bodies and what makes them unique and different. Additionally, great emphasis is placed on children learning about different countries and they taste traditional dishes, such as Turkish moussaka. Children are developing a greater awareness and understanding of the world around them and different cultures.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to further develop their teaching skills so that they are skilled at recognising when to adapt their practice to meet children's individual learning needs
• strengthen communication with parents further to enable them to fully extend their children's learning at home.