Upton Daycare

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled at this friendly and welcoming setting. Staff create a supportive and secure environment for children. They take time to find out about children and their families. Staff encourage children to share what they have been doing at home with their friends and staff. Children demonstrate good behaviour as they listen to instructions, take turns and line up to wait their turn to get their coats ready for outdoor play. Children learn how to use their 'walking feet' to keep themselves safe inside the nursery.

Staff teach children to be independent as they put on and take off their own coats and hang them on their pegs. Children use the toilet and wash their hands unsupervised and safely use scissors independently. Staff offer lots of warm praise and encouragement. Staff encourage children to recall and sing familiar songs as they take turns to choose which song they would like to sing. Children listen carefully and follow staff's actions as they join in and sing favourite songs with great enthusiasm.

Strong attachments with staff support children's emotional well-being as they safely explore the nursery. Staff continuously build on children's communication and language as they share and repeat new words, such as about volcanoes and lava, when children play with dough. Staff ask children open questions to extend their learning and give them the time they need to respond.

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

• Staff provide well-planned and carefully thought out activities for children to help support their learning based on what children know and can do and their interests. Children show good levels of engagement in their play for sustained periods. For example, children enjoy playing in the water tray and learning about sea creatures.
• Staff provide good routines at the nursery. Children are familiar with these routines and anticipate what is happening now and next. Staff engage children well as they enthusiastically read a story about feelings and then ask each child about their own feelings.
• There is an ambitious curriculum in place for all children. Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) well and staff fully understand their needs. However, they do not embed numbers and mathematical language into children's everyday learning to support them to count and develop their understanding of mathematical concepts during their play.
• Leaders are highly qualified, knowledgeable and ambitious. They regularly reflect on the service they provide to families by carrying out parents' questionnaires.
• Staff receive regular support and training to help them to develop practice. Staff express that they are happy and well supported in their roles. This creates a positive atmosphere for children to learn in.
• Staff build strong bonds with parents and carers. They use an online app and face-to-face communication to keep parents informed about their children's progress and care. Staff give children suggestions for '50 things to do before they are five' and encourage them to complete the activities with their parents. Children share what they have done with their peers at circle time and receive a small prize when they complete five things. Parents speak highly of managers and staff, and feel that they are extremely supportive.
• Overall, the nursery extends children's cultural capital, such as by taking them on visits in the community to the library, park and shops to buy ingredients for baking. It has strong links to the community and staff organise visits from postal workers, police officers and dental nurses. However, while the nursery does explore some cultural and religious festivals with children, staff do not embed diversity into everyday practice to help extend children's understanding of life in modern day Britain.
• The nursery promotes healthy lifestyles with children. Staff encourage healthy eating, good oral hygiene and give children the opportunities to improve their physical skills. For example, children climb on and roll large tyres, kick footballs and balance on beams in the garden.
• Staff support children who speak English as an additional language well. When children first start at nursery, they are given a key worker who supports them to use their home languages as well as learning English. This helps to settle children and for them to build attachments.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop the implementation of the mathematics curriculum to extend children's understanding of numbers, counting and develop their understanding of mathematical language and concepts
• strengthen the teaching of diversity throughout the setting to extend children's understanding of life in modern Britain.