Bright Minds @ Mountfield

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children at this setting are happy, safe and emotionally secure.

They are motivated to learn. Children display close and strong bonds with all staff members, who know the children very well. Staff show that they have a caring relationship, which helps children to explore the setting.

Staff plan a good range of activities that engage children's imagination. For example, children are curious and highly engaged as they play with the dolls and teddies in the home corner. They enjoy wrapping them in blankets and placing them down in the cots for a nap.

Children behave well and play cooperatively together. Staff hav...e high expectations and are positive role models. They give children clear boundaries and routines.

Staff help children to understand the routine of the day. For example, they use a wealth of visual prompts and basic sign language. They choose a 'monitor' to take the tidy-up sign around the room to show their friends when it is time to tidy away for lunch.

This helps to reinforce language and communication and builds on all children's understanding. Children make friendships with others and form respectful relationships with staff.

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

Staff promote children's communication and language skills well.

They consistently engage children in conversations and provide a narrative while children play. Children sing nursery rhymes and try hard to join in with the actions. Staff have developed a lending library for parents.

This helps to extend children's communication and language at home.Children develop good physical skills. For example, they confidently balance and climb on different play equipment in the garden.

Older children show that they have a comfortable grip when using pencils and crayons as they make marks on their 'Santa lists'. This helps to develop their small muscles for future writing.Staff help children to develop a greater understanding of numbers and mathematical concepts.

For example, they encourage children to use mathematical language such as 'bigger', 'smaller', 'taller' and 'shorter' while choosing from a bag of everyday objects. Children delight in telling them that the jug is 'the biggest of them all'.The nursery promotes an effective healthy food policy.

Staff work closely with parents to ensure that children's packed lunches are filled with nutritious foods. They engage in discussions with children about the health benefits of eating vegetables at lunch and snack times.Staff encourage children's independence.

They support children to manage their own self-care needs effectively. For example, they self-register when they arrive in the morning. At snack time, they attempt to peel their own fruit.

This helps them develop the essential skills that they need in readiness for school.Partnership working is a strength of the setting. Staff work closely with other professionals, for example health visitors.

This ensures that all children, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress. Leaders act with integrity in using funding to provide personalised support to children who need it the most.Partnerships with parents are strong.

Parents speak highly of the setting. An online app keeps parents informed about children's care routines, progress and how they can support learning at home.The management team provides staff with regular meetings to discuss children's progress.

It also completes supervision meetings to identify training needs. However, there is less focus on monitoring staff performance to help to identify and address emerging weaknesses in practice. This includes how staff implement the setting's curriculum to ensure children achieve the best possible outcomes in their learning.

Staff observe their key children and assess their progress each term, taking into account children's starting points. This helps them to identify gaps in children's learning. However, the information obtained from assessment is not used as effectively as possible to identify the most accurate next steps for individual children and to help sharply focus their learning.

This means children do not always make as much progress as they could.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Since the last inspection, staff have completed refresher training to ensure their knowledge about how to keep children safe and protect their welfare remains up to date.

The setting has improved safeguarding and accident reporting practice to ensure that any concerns are swiftly identified and reported to the relevant personnel in a timely manner. Leaders and staff have a good understanding of safeguarding procedures. Staff have a good understanding of concerns such as extreme views, female genital mutilation, domestic violence and county lines.

The manager works with relevant agencies to keep children safe and accesses help for families when needed. Robust recruitment procedures are in place.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nenhance the use of supervision, support and coaching to monitor staff performance in order to further embed the implementation of the curriculum and help to consistently raise the quality of education to the highest level nuse information from assessments more effectively to monitor the learning and progress being made by individual children and to identify more-accurate next steps in learning.

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