Wainscot House Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settled in the nursery. They quickly build strong and trusting relationships with the attentive and friendly staff. This helps the youngest children confidently play and explore, knowing they can seek reassurance or comfort when they need it. Babies snuggle up with staff to share books. They look at the pictures and listen intently to the words and descriptions staff use. This helps children foster a love for books and stories from a very young age. Through a planned curriculum, staff follow children's interests, helping them build on what they already know and understand. For example, older children look through magnifying glasses to find and look at brightly coloured bugs and insects hidden in a tray. Staff talk to them about the size and characteristics of the creatures, helping to introduce new concepts and words for children to repeat and practise while they play.

From a very early age, children learn to share and to be kind to others. Staff give consistent and gentle reminders to help children begin to regulate their behaviours and feelings. Children attending the pre-school class create their own rules. In a group, they decide which are the most important rules. Staff write these, using the children's own words, and display them on the wall for all to see. This helps children begin to understand aspects such as democracy and negotiation.

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

• The team of staff work very well together. They share ideas and support less experienced and new members of staff in their roles, helping to ensure children constantly receive good-quality care and attention. Leaders hold staff's well-being in high regard, helping to promote positive attitudes. In turn, staff show respect for their colleagues and children, acting as positive role models for children to follow. This contributes to the calm and harmonious environment.
• When children are ready to move to the next group or leave to go to school, staff support them to help them get used to new routines and different people and environments. Children visit their new group for short periods of time and experience familiar routines in the day, such as mealtimes, in their new room before they spend all their time there. Key persons make sure that important information about children, their likes and what they already know and understand, is passed to staff in the new group. This helps to ensure transitions are made as smooth as possible. As a result, children continue to flourish and learn.
• Children are curious and keen to learn. They follow their interests, helping to trigger new experiences for them to explore with their friends. Staff follow a well-considered curriculum that has a focus on children's developing language and communication skills and their personal, social and emotional development.
• Staff effectively introduce other areas of learning, such as mathematics and finding out about the world, into children's self-chosen play and activities planned to help teach children what they need to know next.
• Staff and leaders work well with professionals from other agencies and organisations. For example, they take advice from speech and language therapists to help them effectively support children's communication. Other professionals visit to help identify areas of practice to further develop, helping managers make continual improvements within the nursery. This contributes to the high expectations leaders have.
• Children welcome staff to join them in their games. They ask questions and proudly show staff what they have made or have discovered. The dedicated staff give clear explanations and descriptions to support children's learning. However, at times their enthusiasm to support children means that children do not have time to identify and solve problems for themselves. Opportunities to find different ways of doing things or to formulate answers to questions are sometimes limited. This hinders children's creativity and scope to develop their thinking skills.
• Staff get to know children and their families very well. When children first start in the nursery, staff gather key information to help ensure their contributions to children's care and teaching accurately reflect children's precise needs. At the end of the day, staff describe to parents what their children have been doing and enjoyed throughout the day. However, strategies to ensure parents regularly and consistently receive clear information about what children have learned and how they can continue to support children's progress at home, are not fully embedded. As a result, some parents are less informed about their children's progress than others.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• give children more time to identify and solve problems and to find different ways of doing things for themselves
• review and effectively embed consistent methods to regularly share information with all parents, so that they are fully informed about how they can support their children's continued learning and development at home.