Yellow Brick Road Daycare Tuxford

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in this welcoming and homely nursery. They are warmly greeted at the door by their key person as they arrive for the day. Staff genuinely care about the children who they look after. They get to know the children and their families well. Staff talk to parents about the child's life outside the nursery and the type of things that they enjoy doing as a family. They use this information to provide activities that link to children's individual interests and experiences. Staff support children to build on what they already know and can do.

Staff provide an extremely stimulating environment both inside and outdoors. Resources for babies and toddlers are carefully selected to encourage children to explore and learn through their senses. Babies and toddlers spend an extended period of time concentrating as they play with water, exploring natural objects, such as shells. Staff model language in relation to what the children are playing with for babies and toddlers to copy.

Pre-school children spend their day outside. Staff support children to recognise risks in the environment and implement rules to keep children safe. Children understand and can recite the rules, such as not to lick or pick the vegetation and to leave insects and animals in the habitat that they find them. They confidently point out safety risks in the environment to the staff. Children demonstrate that they understand how to minimise risk, such as picking up resources that have been dropped on the floor before anyone trips over them.

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

• The aim of the nursery curriculum is to support all children to develop skills for life, enabling children to safely explore their surroundings and be resilient and confident. Staff use information from observations of children to plan for their individual next steps in development. They are committed to working with parents and other professionals to support children with delays in their development. They put plans in place to help children to reach their full potential and use additional funding to provide targeted intervention.
• Staff use a variety of communication methods to keep parents informed about their child's care, learning and development. This includes encouraging parents to support children's next steps in development at home and to read with their children. Parents say that their children love attending the nursery. Managers are committed to removing barriers that families face in accessing education and care for their children and adopt a flexible approach to supporting the families that use the service.
• Staff understand the importance of promoting children's good health. They talk to children about the need to stay well hydrated on hot days and to wear hats and regularly apply sun cream to prevent their skin from burning. Babies are encouraged to use wet flannels to clean their hands and face before and after eating. Staff remind toddlers and pre-school children of the need to wash their hands before eating and after toileting to prevent them getting poorly tummies due to the germs on their hands.
• Staff encourage children to take a keen interest in nature, the environment and natural world around them. Children sit watching the sheep in the field behind the nursery and talk about how they have seen lambs being born. They show concern for a sheep that is laying on it's side in the shade and speculate that it may be having a lamb soon. Overall staff are good role models for communication. However, staff do not consistently use their interactions with children to extend children's communication skills further. They sometimes ask too many closed questions or provide the answers to the questions they ask without giving the children time to think and respond.
• Overall, staff support children to build positive attitudes to learning. Children show high levels of curiosity and concentration as they use litter pickers to sort empty packets and bottles into the correct recycling boxes for cardboard and plastic. However, at times, staff over direct children's play. As a result, children do not always have the opportunity to follow and test out their own ideas and deepen their own learning.
• Managers provide effective support for the staff team. Through supervision and ongoing observations of staff's practice, they encourage staff to continually build on their skills and knowledge. They support staff to take part in continuing professional development opportunities and training. Staff comment that they enjoy working at the setting and feel valued.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to constantly engage children more effectively in conversations and extend their communication and language skills further
• help staff to recognise when to allow children to continue their play without interruption and over direction.