Westhill House Day Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are nurturing and take time to get to know the needs of all children. Children are happy, and thoroughly enjoy the time they spend at the nursery. Children who are new to the nursery settle well. Babies quickly form close attachments to staff and feel confident to play, and explore their new surroundings.

Children make good progress and gain a wide range of useful skills and knowledge that prepare them well for their future learning. For example, babies who are reluctant to walk or crawl when they first start, swiftly gain the motivation to move and explore. Staff skilfully support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They provide individual learning experiences to help each child progress well.

Staff expertly support children to develop their communication and language skills. They understand how to help children at different stages of their development to communicate. Babies and younger children experiment with sounds and learn new words. They use short phrases and learn to speak in simple sentences. Pre-school children give detailed explanations and explain their ideas clearly. Staff use a range of successful strategies to help children who have language delay to communicate their needs and wants.

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

• Leaders keep updated with changes in the early years and, overall, understand their roles and responsibilities. However, the provider has not notified Ofsted of the company secretary. Although this is a breach of the legal requirements, the impact on children is minimal.
• Leaders reflect well on the service they provide. They oversee the quality of teaching and children's learning closely. The manager strives towards continual improvement and helps staff to extend their knowledge and focus on finding different ways to support children's learning. For example, the manager and staff have recently developed a consistent approach to supporting children to manage their feelings and behaviour throughout the nursery.
• Staff have a detailed knowledge of their key children. They analyse their observations of children to identify how they are progressing and what they need to learn to extend their knowledge further. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the manager and staff noticed that children needed more encouragement to keep trying on a task. They focused on helping children to develop perseverance to solve problems for themselves.
• Parents speak highly of the support that they and their children receive from the manager, and staff. Staff communicate with them regularly about their child's progress and give them ideas to support children's continued learning at home.
• Parents explain how well staff prepare their children for school.
• Children in the pre-school use their mathematical knowledge to explain how totals change when objects are added to a group. They recognise small totals without counting, such as representing the number four using their fingers. However, staff working with younger children do not recognise when some children need a broader range of learning experiences to secure their counting skills and understanding of numbers.
• Some staff help children to explore their own creative ideas. For example, pre-school children make links with their own experiences of Bonfire Night and select resources to make fires and marshmallows on sticks. However, at other times, staff overly direct children's creative play and slightly limit the opportunities for them to make independent choices.
• Children behave well and have a clear understanding of what staff expect from them. Younger children carefully follow instructions and sensibly descend the stairs in a group. They know where to stop and wait for staff. Staff positively interact with children and help them learn to manage their feelings. For example, children develop their social skills and awareness of sharing and taking turns. They say their friends' names and roll a ball to them, then wait patiently for their turn to receive the ball.
• Staff follow good hygiene routines and support children's health well. Children learn about the importance of a balanced diet and enjoy the nutritious meals.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance staff's understanding of how young children build their mathematical knowledge to help them to gain a deeper understanding of number
• increase opportunities for children to express their own creative ideas to help them to develop their thinking skills and independent choices even further.