Bright Horizons Witney Day Nursery and Preschool

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision requires improvement The quality of education is variable.

However, staff working in the baby room meet children's care and learning needs securely. All children are cared for in a well-resourced environment, which covers all areas of learning. Despite some weaknesses, staff know and understand the learning intentions for activities and their key children's next steps in learning.

However, not all staff provide consistently good support for children's care and learning needs, to help promote their further progress. This includes some children who need extra support for their learning.Children are happy to attend and settle on arrival.
.../>They are confident to explore and make choices from activities and resources, such as when outside. Staff provide interesting activities, which encourage most children to investigate. This was seen at the inspection, when babies and toddlers enjoyed exploring sand and water.

Staff generally support children to develop their independence and follow appropriate hygiene routines suitably. For example, pre-school children learn to wash their hands independently before eating. Staff who regularly work with children and know them best demonstrate a secure understanding of those who need help with their behaviour and emotions.

They implement appropriate strategies to support children. This is helping to promote improvements in children's behaviour.

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

Some staff do not always engage with all children well enough, such as those who occupy themselves happily or wander around.

This does not support these children's learning, development and progress at a good level. Staff though demonstrate understanding of what their key children need to learn next. At times, they provide good interactions, particularly during planned activities.

The special educational needs coordinator understands her role securely and works closely with parents and professionals. Some staff work effectively with children who need extra help and meet their needs successfully. For example, staff use and teach other children Makaton to promote communication.

However, not all staff provide teaching to meet some children's identified needs. This does not promote all children's progress well enough.The managers have involved staff in creating a vision for the nursery.

They have made some improvements such as to the learning environments. There are suitable monitoring processes, including regular observations of staff's practice. However, these do not always identify areas of practice to develop further.

This includes senior staff's leadership skills to help them to guide their team's practice more effectively.The managers support staff, including through training and regular supervision meetings. Staff use new knowledge from training, such as to provide interesting activities.

They feel supported by the managers and state their well-being is carefully considered. There are plans being implemented to provide a more stable staff team to promote more consistency in meeting children's needs.Staff are building on children's skills to regulate their own behaviour.

They have introduced strategies, such as calming areas and using books, to explore emotions. However, when staff meet some children's individual behaviour needs, they are not always able to offer other children sustained interactions.Many children enjoy exploring the sensory activities on offer.

For instance, they investigated petals in water and dinosaurs in coloured 'gloop' using their hands. When staff interact with children during these activities, they encourage children's language development well. Toddlers benefit from group activities to develop their social and physical skills, such as rolling balls with their friends.

Staff sometimes do not guide children's understanding of healthy practices well enough. This was seen during the inspection, when a small number of children ate the gloop mixture and staff did little to intervene. Staff tried to keep children mostly in the shade during the very hot and sunny weather although did not encourage all children to wear sun hats.

However, they offered children drinks regularly to help keep them hydrated.Babies receive care which reflects their home routines, such as sleep times. This helps to promote their sense of security.

Toddlers benefit from well-thought-out lunchtime arrangements, which are calm and supportive. For example, staff continued activities with half of the group while the rest ate lunch. Staff help pre-school children gain skills for the future, including learning to clear their plates after eating.

Parents receive a good range of information about children's daily care and activities. Parents provided positive feedback about the nursery and staff. They comment that their children enjoy going to nursery and make progress there, including gaining confidence and language skills.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nimprove staff's skills and awareness of supporting all children, including those who need extra help, to enable them to provide consistently good interactions that engage all children successfully in their learning develop senior staff's understanding of their roles to help them to guide other staff more successfully to meet children's needs nensure staff meet children's care needs more consistently to promote their good health effectively build on the monitoring processes in place to help identify improvements and embed staff's good practice further.