Tootsies Private Day Nursery Ltd

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Management and staff implement a clear and ambitious curriculum. Children confidently enter the nursery and happily leave their parents to go to staff. They eagerly explore and play in the enticing environments that staff create for them.

Staff provide babies with lots of sensory experiences and opportunities to develop their physical skills as they cruise around, over and through resources. Staff talk to babies and narrate what they are doing, encouraging their emerging communication and language skills. Staff spend time building nurturing relationships with babies and building on their emotional skills as they sensitively interact with them. As children move through the nursery the nurturing continues. Staff in the toddler rooms use children's interests to engage them in their learning. They hide toy insects in coloured ice cubes for children to explore and use to 'paint', and encourage them to then make prints using the insects in dough.

Older toddlers build on their vocabulary and physical skills further as they use crayons to create pictures on paper plates, and play matching games with staff. Pre-school children enjoy talking about their sports day activities. They recreate their 'bodies' using cotton buds for their limbs and dough for their body. Outside, children enjoy lying down on the patio and drawing around each other, or staff, to make a body outline. They eagerly discuss what they have drawn and share what they learned about their bodies, such as that their hearts are pumps.

Children behave well. Staff support them to develop good self-confidence and self-esteem. Children make good progress in their learning and develop the skills they need for their next stage of learning.

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

• Management and staff have worked through the actions from the previous inspection and reflected on their knowledge, skills and practice. Management has built on staff's confidence, targeted professional development, and ensured that the ambitious curriculum is securely embedded into their daily practice. Staff deployment and qualification ratios are effectively met. Staff demonstrate a secure safeguarding knowledge. Training and mentoring has had a very positive impact on their practice, self-esteem and the influence they have on outcomes for children.
• Good use of observations and tracking is made to monitor the progress of all children. Parents receive this information from staff at drop off and collection times and via the online recording application. There has been an increase in information-sharing with parents, who state that they appreciate this and it helps them to continue their children's learning at home.
• Children receive good support to learn to express their emotions and build on their communication. During a yoga and mindfulness session, children learn about breathing to relax and expressing their emotions. They learn new vocabulary as they talk through the movements they complete. This supports children to develop their language skills and their sense of self.
• Management support new staff through an induction process to enable them to fulfil their roles and responsibilities effectively. All staff receive supervision, which helps to identify where additional training and mentoring will develop their practice. Currently, management are supporting a new room team in their interactions with children, to help staff give clearer information on how they hope children will engage in activities, and work seamlessly as a team. However, this is still being embedded. Although staff interact well with children as individuals, at times, the intended learning is not consistently achieved across the whole setting.
• Management and staff provide good support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They build effective partnerships with parents, other professional services and local authority advisers to ensure that children thrive and succeed. Staff routinely implement individual educational plans, and the special educational needs coordinator ensures that these are kept up to date to meet children's needs.
• Staff act as positive role models and support children to understand how to play safely and keep their friends safe. They encourage children to share, take turns and talk about how they feel. Children are given respect and they are listened to. Children show genuine kindness to others.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to implement the precise learning intentions of activities more effectively, so that they are all clear about what skills and knowledge they want children to gain.