Zikora Day Nursery And Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and staff provide a warm and welcoming environment for all children. They greet children with excitement, which helps them to arrive happily and follow the routines well. For example, children swiftly put their coats and bags away and change into their indoor shoes. Staff are readily available to assist younger children to change their shoes. This helps children to feel safe, secure and settle quickly into their day. Staff create a respectful and nurturing environment. They gently remind children of the rules and discuss the expectations for their behaviour. Overall, children's behaviour is good.

Leaders work in partnership with external professionals and support staff to plan an ambitious curriculum. They take account of children's interests and allow them opportunities to practise their developing skills and knowledge. This helps all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) and those who speak English as an additional language, to make good progress from their starting points in development.

Staff create experiences for children to explore their local community and learn about the world around them. They recreate experiences to support children to make links and connections to their prior learning. For example, children benefit from accessing an indoor autumn trail. Staff resource this with natural autumn leaves that children have collected during their nature walk. They encourage children to walk on the autumn leaves and use their senses to describe the texture and noise the leaves make when they step on them. Staff introduce a range of vocabulary, such as 'damp' and 'crunchy', to support children's language development.

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

• Staff use their knowledge of what children can do to plan a range of interesting opportunities to build on their existing skills and knowledge. Staff support their key children well and carry out regular observations and assessments to identify gaps in their learning. This helps all children to achieve positive outcomes.
• Staff build strong relationships with parents. They gather key information about children's care needs. This helps staff to support children to transition smoothly to the nursery and settle in well. For instance, staff learn about babies' individual routines from parents and mirror these during the settling-in period. This provides consistency for babies and helps staff to meet babies' emotional needs well.
• Since the last inspection, leaders and staff have worked extensively on developing the weaknesses raised. They ensure that children have access to a range of resources. In addition, staff make books available that represent the different languages children speak. They organise cultural events to explore each child's background and invite parents to attend. This supports children to learn to develop respect and understanding, and promotes children's self-confidence and self-esteem well.
• Staff support children to develop their independence skills well. All children, including babies, have access to nose-wiping stations, equipped with mirrors and bins at their height. Staff support children to develop a sense of responsibility. For example, children take turns to feed the fish and turtle in their rooms. They monitor the growth and weight of the turtle over time using a weighing scale. This supports their mathematical development well.
• Overall, staff support children to develop their language and communication skills well. Staff ignite a love of books in children. They provide a variety of resources and props to help children to retell stories. Children excitedly dress up in different clothes to play the roles of different characters from the stories. Staff interact well with children and model language well.
• Staff plan a range of activities that support children to practise their hand-eye-coordination skills and the small muscles in their hands. They provide resources, such as tweezers and tongs, for children to use. Outdoors, children benefit from practising, to develop their core strength and coordination skills. They learn to balance, jump from a reasonable height and land safely. Staff plan games that help children to develop their spatial awareness well.
• Staff feel valued and well supported. Leaders work with staff and parents to evaluate the effectiveness of the provision on offer. Leaders have plans to implement training to develop staff's questioning techniques to ensure that all children can develop their language and thinking skills and learning even further.
• Staff have implemented strategies, such as the use of sand timers, to support children to learn to share and take turns. However, at times, staff do not help children to resolve conflicts independently, such as by reminding them to use the sand timers.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to improve their questioning techniques to extend children's learning and language development further
• use the strategies in place more consistently to support younger children to develop their turn-taking and sharing skills to avoid disruptions to their learning.