Bright Horizons New Southgate Day Nursery and Preschool

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children are warmly welcomed into this nurturing and well-presented setting. The environment is so inviting and has many exciting areas for children to explore.

Children get busy quickly and are greeted warmly by their key person. Babies cannot wait to start climbing the stairs and going down the slide on their indoor climbing equipment. Children are immersed in songs and stories as soon as they enter the nursery.

They are eager to choose favourite books for adults to read and sing 'Baby shark' in the engaging under the sea area that has been created from their interests. Staff have high expectations of children. Child...ren enjoy their time at nursery and have created strong bonds with adults and friends.

Children behave well. They settle swiftly as parents drop them off, and enjoy choosing their cereal for breakfast. Children are growing in confidence and developing a love of learning as they begin to investigate and explore, while spending good periods of time playing with what they have chosen.

For example, babies enjoy their 'wheels on the bus' café and roll their sleeves up to fully explore the slime. Toddlers use play dough to design and make their own spiders like the ones they found in the garden earlier.

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

Staff find out about children's interests, which informs their planning.

Staff complete detailed observations and assessments of children's progress. Overall, this allows them to quickly identify if there are any gaps in children's learning. However, occasionally, staff do not make a clear link between the intended learning and the delivery of planned activities for younger children.

This means that, at times, young children's learning opportunities are not maximised.Children's communication skills are encouraged throughout the nursery. For instance, staff use single words with babies, and use repetition effectively.

Older children are confident communicators. As their language develops, children are able to ask for help when needed and initiate conversation with their peers. Pre-school children learn words of affirmation as they write their own fortune cookies about being strong, loved and capable.

Children have respect for their environment and are encouraged to look after their resources. They are very helpful when tidying up and follow instructions and routines quickly. Their independence skills are developing well, as they wash their hands, lay the table for lunch and scrape their plates.

Children have positive attitudes towards learning and behave very well. For instance, toddlers play independently, use blocks to build towers, building them up again when they fall down, and work cooperatively with friends to create patterns using magnetic tiles.Staff know the children well and understand what they need in order to feel safe and secure.

Babies and children can express their emotions well and seek out staff for comfort when needed.Staff ensure that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities can access and benefit from the curriculum. Staff put effective plans in place, that are shared with parents, to improve progress.

With support from an experienced special educational needs coordinator and outside agencies, the staff implement a variety of strategies to support the needs of the children. For instance, they plan small one-to-one and group work, for children who may need more attention.Parents speak highly of this setting and are impressed with the level of communication, support, and the personalised settling-in process.

They benefit from sharing ideas at parent social evenings, get regular updates on the parent app and have opportunities to discuss relevant topics, such as trying new foods. Parents engage well with the lending library and borrow books children have chosen.Leaders and managers are motivated and ambitious.

Leaders ensure that training is relevant, and overall professional development is a priority. In the main, the managers have a good overview of the nursery. However, there is scope to improve how they monitor the quality of teaching and education, in particular for younger children, to ensure it is consistent across the nursery and continually improving.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff have a robust safeguarding procedure in place. They have regular and up-to-date training to ensure their knowledge is current and refreshed.

This includes signs that a child may be at risk from those with extreme views. Leaders and managers make keeping children safe a priority. They ensure that any concerns are raised in a timely way, follow the correct procedures and always seek advice where necessary.

Health and safety are paramount. Staff's use of their safety mascot helps the children to keep themselves safe.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nembed staff's knowledge and skills of teaching to ensure there is a learning focus and clear intention during interactions and experiences that support young children's development further focus professional development opportunities more precisely on supporting staff to use their interactions with with younger children effectively so that they are consistently focused on improving learning and development outcomes.