Belsize Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is outstanding

All children make great strides in their learning and development.

This is especially so for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Staff are highly skilled and use the most effective approaches to ensure that each child reaches their full potential. Children benefit greatly from a rich indoor and outdoor learning environment that is full of stimulating and wonderful learning opportunities.

They love to show off their adept physical skills in the garden as they walk forwards, backwards and sideways along stepping stones. They also risk assess for themselves as they carefully consider whethe...r they are able to climb up a tower of pallets and delight as they achieve this and jump off. Children new to the setting settle tremendously swiftly.

This is because staff gain such a deep understanding of them, and build up such a close relationship with their families, as quickly as possible. New children show they are already confident in the routines and confidently access facilities independently. Staff have high expectations of the children and children respond readily to these.

Children are shown much respect and that their contributions are highly valued. As a result, this is behaviour they consistently model themselves to their friends. For example, they turn towards their friend, to give eye contact and to show they are listening, because they understand that this is what their friend did when it was their own turn to speak.

Children, including those who speak English as an additional language, make significant progress in their communication and language development. This is encouraged, in the nursery and at home for children, by many highly effective initiatives and through training for staff.

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

The quality of teaching is outstanding.

Every time staff interact with children it is carefully considered based on what they know about the children and what children need to learn next. Staff constantly encourage children to have a go, and frequently use the phrase 'there is never a wrong answer' to give children high levels of self-confidence. Staff use many open-ended questions so that children consistently have to think, solve problems and articulate their responses.

Children have a thirst for learning. They show much excitement and anticipation as they make a bubble mixture, make predictions and test these out at regular intervals. Children know a great many rhymes and eagerly complete them when staff miss words out or purposefully include the wrong phrase.

Staff have created an environment rich in mathematics, language and literacy. Books are a very important part of the curriculum. These are brought to life by staff who share their enthusiasm with children.

For example, children are eager to demonstrate the different actions in the story 'No Probllama'. Staff extend children's vocabulary, give them opportunity to demonstrate what they know and then build on this. Children are extremely well prepared for school.

They develop high levels of independence, self-care and confidence at every opportunity and are advanced in their phonics skills.Staff are highly skilled and trained. They show a deep knowledge of early years and child development.

Staff are very calm and patient, especially with those children who struggle to manage their feelings and emotions. They employ highly successful strategies to ensure every child is included and positively contributes. Staff constantly use meaningful praise.

Children demonstrate great pride as staff show confidence in them and set further personal challenges.Partnerships with parents and other professionals are exemplary and highly effective. There are a wealth of ways that staff encourage parents to get involved in their children's learning, including sharing books from the nursery at home, home-learning activities, workshops, weekend activity bags and sharing observations of their children on 'weekend leaves'.

Feedback from parents is highly complimentary. They comment, for example, how thrilled they are that staff want the same for their child as they do. They are so grateful for the opportunities that staff offer their children and appreciate the fact that staff always go above and beyond.

Leadership and management are inspiring. Every child's progress is stringently monitored so that any intervention required is identified and sourced as soon as possible. Staff constantly self-reflect on practice and have ongoing ambitious plans to further develop the provision.

Management and staff are truly passionate about their role and want children to learn with this same passion too. They see everything as a learning opportunity for children, and it is this that significantly contributes towards the outstanding quality of their provision.Children's individual dietary and medical needs are very well met.

Clear strategies for managing these are implemented to closely protect children's health and well-being.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The safety of the children is at the very heart of all that the staff do.

Staff are very knowledgeable about how to protect children from abuse, harm and neglect. Stringent procedures ensure that any concerns about children's welfare are reported to appropriate agencies. Risk assessments and the recruitment of staff are robust.