Zizu's Children's Day Care

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are kind, caring and nurturing towards children. They focus on meeting their care needs and helping children to settle into the nursery so that they feel safe and secure. Children, including those who are new to the nursery, form close bonds with staff. They benefit from the specific, regular praise from staff and begin to learn about behavioural boundaries and expectations. The manager has worked closely with the staff team to reflect on the curriculum and tailor it to meet children's learning needs. Staff know what children need to learn next and help them develop the skills they need for the next stages in their learning, such as moving on to the next room in the nursery and eventually to school.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the manager and staff team have focused on supporting children and families to feel welcome in the new nursery and providing flexible visits to help staff get to know children. Parents have completed evaluations of the nursery, and the manager has responded to their feedback. Staff provide regular phone calls to discuss children's learning and development with parents and families. This helps them to feel included in their children's learning and promotes continuity. In addition, extra rooms have been used to provide smaller groups, which are based on children's developmental stages. Parents are keen to leave feedback for the inspection. They say staff are wonderful, they genuinely care for their children and the environment is fantastic.

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

• Staff are experienced and knowledgeable in their role. They demonstrate a thorough understanding of child development and the different ways children learn. For example, staff understand why children need to fill, tip, empty and transport toys. They provide activities that enable children to carry out these actions in their play. Children benefit from a sequenced curriculum, which builds on their existing skills and helps them to build secure foundations in their physical, communication and emotional development.
• Children show that they have fun at nursery. They are keen to join in with activities and show enthusiasm in their learning. Babies explore the tastes and textures of vegetables, and staff encourage them to stand up at the table to develop their physical skills. Toddlers play imaginatively in the mud kitchen outdoors, and staff encourage them to extend their vocabulary. Older children eagerly recall stories and count how many arms and eyes their 'alien' will have.
• Staff are very good role models for children. They model excellent teamwork and communicate with each other to provide support. Children learn to share and take turns with others. Older children learn about how they feel and the impact this can have on others. Children are very polite and develop good levels of self-confidence and self-esteem. Staff help them to work together and develop good social skills.
• Staff teach children about nature and encourage them to explore the garden with interest. Young children thoroughly enjoy searching for bugs and shapes in the environment and use magnifying glasses and picture cards to help identify features. Although staff make excellent use of the garden and learning opportunities here, they have not started to take children out into the wider community or fully implemented ways to reflect young children's own culture and diversity inside the setting.
• Overall, staff focus their teaching on children's individual next steps and provide high-quality interactions. For instance, staff support children to develop their communication and language skills through every aspect of their play. They swiftly identify areas of potential concern and delay and access professional support quickly to close gaps. However, there are large numbers of children settling into the nursery currently, which has an impact on how much time staff have for teaching.
• Children develop a good understanding of what it means to be healthy. They grow their own vegetables, which are later served at lunchtime. This encourages children to try a wider range of healthy foods. They show pride in the produce and understand where food comes from. In addition, staff promote children's oral health, and children brush their teeth daily at nursery.
• Leaders are strong, supportive and passionate about their work with children. They demonstrate commitment to providing high standards of care and learning for all children. For instance, they regularly gather feedback from parents to help drive improvements forward and ask staff to contribute to development plans. Staff develop and maintain good partnership working with families and other professionals who work with children. This helps to promote continuity for children.
• Staff say they feel happy and that their well-being is prioritised by the management team. They benefit from regular supervision and have access to training that helps them to meet children's needs, such as the Early Talk Boost training. Staff attend professional development opportunities with the local authority and other settings. They share good practice and evaluate on the impact of their training for children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• consider ways to support children's growing understanding of the world around them and how to further learn about children's own cultures in the setting
• enable staff to provide children with consistently high-quality learning opportunities, particularly when there are larger numbers of children settling in.