YMCA Little Whale Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision requires improvement Children enjoy their time at nursery and appear happy and settled.

Staff support the children to take risk in their play and be physically active and confidently mobile from a very young age. This supports children's health and well-being and encourages a love for adventure. However, not all staff are skilled in teaching them to understand and manage their feelings and behaviour.

Children are not supported to develop the social and emotional skills required to form and maintain positive relationships. This impacts on some children's personal development, and children do not always learn to be respectful of each other.Desp...ite staff knowing children really well and planning for their next steps of learning, children do not benefit from consistently good levels of teaching.

Managers are clear about what they want children to learn. However, they do not effectively monitor staff's delivery of the curriculum well enough. Children do not consistently benefit from positive staff interactions which sustain and develop their curiosity and engagement in learning.

Staff do not fully consider ways to promote children's independence. Some activities led by adults do not give opportunities for children to think critically and problem-solve. This does not support all children to make the progress that they are capable of.

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

Leaders have a clear focus on communication and language and this is evident across the nursery. The teaching for mathematics is less successful than other parts of the curriculum. Therefore, children do not make the progress they are capable of in this area.

Children are supported to develop a love for stories, books and rhymes. Very young babies respond with enthusiasm and recognition to familiar songs and action rhymes. They squeal with delight and clap their hands in time with their friends and teachers.

Young children are provided with resources to hold and look at during story time to support their understanding and help them learn to sit for a short period of time. This builds their concentration and develops good learning habits.Children are active in their play and are developing good strength, control and coordination.

Very young babies demonstrate perseverance and dexterity when using shape sorters and using cutlery. The manager has supported staff to implement more opportunities around the daily care routines for older children. For example, self-serving of food and helping children to safely cut their own fruit.

However, these experiences are not consistent and some children, particularly two-year-olds, are yet to benefit from the improvements in practice in this area of the curriculum.Staff's interactions and engagement with children are variable. At times, leaders need to intervene to remind staff to interact with children and model behaviour management strategies.

This leads to children receiving mixed messages regarding expected levels of behaviour.Children are not clear on the intent of activities and do not remain engaged for any significant period of time. They enjoy spending time outdoors and are encouraged to take risks in their play.

However, they do not follow simple rules and these are not consistently reinforced. For example, staff advise that children should wait for an adult to be present before using the large climbing equipment. However, during the inspection, children were not observing this rule.

Staff act swiftly and point out that they know they should wait for an adult to be present but do not explain why.Leaders and managers have systems in place for monitoring the workloads and well-being of the staff team. Such systems have highlighted several issues which have been swiftly addressed and resulted in changes to staffing and room arrangements.

These changes have not yet had time to fully embed into practice and so their impact on outcomes for children are not known.Parents feel confident that their children are safe, happy and well cared for by the staff team at the nursery. They value the ideas for home learning shared by the team and feel heavily involved in their child's learning and care.

This includes inputting into the two-year progress reviews and termly assessment meetings.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff safeguarding knowledge is secure.

They can identify the signs and indicators of potential abuse and know the procedure to follow should concerns arise. There are effective systems in place for the management of individual children's medical and dietary needs across the setting. The manager keeps comprehensive records of accidents/incidents and effective risk management actions are evident in monitoring and review systems.

The provider ensures swift management of staffing concerns with appropriate referrals made where required. The provider is aware of safe recruitment processes and has robust systems in place for checking the suitability of those working with children.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nimprove the quality of teaching and interactions with children, so that all staff are able to consistently guide children's learning as they play strengthen the curriculum for mathematics to further support children's counting and understanding of numbers support staff's understanding of the setting's behaviour management policy and monitor the implementation of behaviour management strategies across the staff team.