Tops Day Nurseries - Portsmouth

Inclusion: Urgent improvement

Children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those that face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing are not provided with focused support to enable them to engage or develop skills. Leaders do not ensure that strategies put in place to support children to engage in learning are understood and consistently used by staff. For example, when children transition between rooms, strategies and resources are not shared. Furthermore, staff do not support children who face barriers to learning to regulate their emotions. For instance, they do not respond to children's cues or help them manage peer interactions, leaving them, at times, to navigate social situations alone. This impacts the progress children make and does not support children to develop essential social and emotional skills.

Although leaders have training to support them in helping children with SEND and those that face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing, support for staff is ineffective. For example, leaders share that they develop behaviour plans from written staff observations of children's behaviour to identify additional support that children may need. However, they fail to identify that these are ineffective as staff have a lack of understanding about their purpose. This means that these procedures are not consistently embedded in practice and highlight gaps in monitoring and awareness. As a result, children's needs are not always recognised or responded to effectively.

Support for children who speak English as an additional language is ineffective, as leaders fail to identify these children. Although staff are aware, they are unclear of what languages children speak at home. Staff are not supported by leaders to create plans to begin to narrow the gaps for these children. This lack of action towards meeting children's learning needs, particularly communication and language, impacts the progress some children make.

Curriculum and teaching: Needs attention

Leaders have designed a curriculum that they have a clear understanding of and know what it is they want children to learn. However, they have not consistently supported staff to fully understand the curriculum. Staff interactions are friendly and welcoming, and they support children in their play. However, some staff, including those that are a key person, are unsure of what children's next steps in learning are. Furthermore, staff do not sufficiently tailor their teaching to children's different stages of development. Therefore, teaching does not always build on what children already know and can do. This means that, at times, children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those that face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing, are not consistently supported to make progress in their learning and development.

Generally, staff support babies' and children's communication and language development. For example, they ask children clear questions, pausing to give them time to respond, and extend children's learning by introducing new words to their vocabulary. Staff support children's basic early counting skills and encourage some mathematical language, such as talking about shapes and sorting sizes during activities. Babies and children enjoy looking at books. They develop a love of stories and sing familiar nursery rhymes.

Achievement: Needs attention

Children make some progress from their starting points. However, older children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those that face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing, do not consistently secure new learning over time. While some children participate and appear settled, others wander and do not engage in activities. Children with SEND do not always receive enough support from staff to help them communicate their needs and wants swiftly. They can become frustrated at this and disengage from learning. As a result, not all children achieve as well as they could. This does not consistently support children to progress to their next stage of learning.

Babies are settled and confident to move around their environment. They explore resources and enjoy activities, demonstrating developing independence. Babies and children develop their physical skills effectively. They move their bodies in different ways with growing coordination and control. For example, babies use equipment to pull themselves up to standing, and children navigate and learn how to go up and down steps. Babies and children are generally happy and display secure attachments with the staff who care for them. This supports children's personal, social and emotional development.

Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines: Needs attention

Leaders' and staff's expectations for children's behaviour and key routines are not consistently implemented across all areas of the setting. For example, during routine activities, such as tooth brushing, older children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those that face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing, are not supported well enough to listen to instructions or understand how to behave. Furthermore, during transitions such as mealtimes, staff do not always notice or respond to children who need help to focus or follow instructions. At times, this impacts children's ability to self-regulate their emotions and understand how to behave appropriately towards others.

Staff provide babies with clear and consistent routines. They support babies to feel settled and secure, meeting their care needs while also establishing positive attitudes to learning. For example, staff provide a calm experience for babies at mealtimes, where babies are developing listening skills and an understanding of good manners. Leaders promote the importance of attendance and follow up on absences, so children benefit from regular experiences. However, some staff show a limited understanding about children whose behaviour is being monitored. This means some patterns of behaviour are not identified as quickly and effectively as they could be and therefore impacts the support children receive.

Generally, children are supported to feel settled and secure and form positive relationships with staff. They enjoy taking part in play-based activities with their friends, where they are supported to share. For example, children have fun playing in the outdoor environments, where, generally, staff discuss with them what they are doing as they dig in the sand, build with large blocks and take turns to ride bicycles.

Children's welfare and wellbeing: Urgent improvement

Leaders do not ensure that staff maintain safe, consistent and responsive supervision of children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those that face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing, resulting in significant weaknesses in children's welfare and wellbeing.

Poor staff deployment and staff often being absorbed in tasks mean they do not consistently respond when risks emerge, leaving children without the supervision they need. For example, staff do not supervise children effectively when they are taking part in high-risk play, including jumping from heights and using climbing equipment. They leave out equipment, such as brooms, which fall near children and create trip hazards, exposing children to harm. In addition, children enter confined spaces, such as role-play cupboards, and struggle to get out due to their friends shutting them in. Staff do not identify this promptly, causing children to become distressed, further highlighting gaps in staff vigilance and awareness. Although staff sit with children at mealtimes, they fail to notice when children jump up and down with fruit in their mouths. Staff do not recognise the potential risks or respond appropriately, demonstrating weak risk awareness and inconsistent support for children's safety. As a result, children are exposed to avoidable harm.

Staff do not promote safe and hygienic care routines. Handwashing is not consistently supported. For example, children are asked to put their hands under running water, without soap or drying them after. During snack time, some children put their hands in their cups and play with their drinking water, then drink it out of their hands. Staff do not intervene when children dispose used tissues back into the tissue box. Furthermore, staff do not supervise tooth brushing effectively as children play with their and other children's toothbrushes while waiting. This creates hygiene risks, increases the risk of cross-contamination and limits opportunities to develop healthy habits. This does not help children to know how to keep themselves safe and healthy.

Leadership and governance: Urgent improvement

Leadership and governance are not effective. Leaders lack sufficient oversight of the setting, which means they are unclear about the areas that need improvement. There are multiple breaches of the statutory safeguarding and welfare requirements that impact children's safety and progress, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those that face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing. These breaches highlight concerns around leaders' ability to make decisions based on ensuring children's full safety and being able to sustain any improvements, as there are repeated failures in meeting some of the statutory framework for the early years foundation stage requirements.

Leaders do not have effective systems in place for monitoring, coaching and supporting staff to ensure that they are sufficiently supported to understand their roles and responsibilities. They do not make sure that staff understand how to identify potential risks to children to promote children's safety. Furthermore, leaders do not consistently ensure that the supervision of children is effective. They pay insufficient regard to supporting staff to develop their knowledge of targeted teaching to improve the quality of education and to help all children, including those with SEND and those who face other barriers to learning and/or wellbeing, to receive the quality interactions and targeted support they need to achieve.

Staff attend supervision meetings with leaders and discuss their wellbeing and workloads. Leaders have built positive working relationships with children's families. Communication between leaders and parents is regular, and leaders ensure that staff share information with parents about the activities for children.