Busy Bees Day Nursery at Loughborough

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The caring staff team in this welcoming setting help children to settle well and develop strong secure emotional attachments.

Babies enjoy exploring their environment, both indoors and outside, where staff support them in learning to crawl, cruise around furniture and take tentative first steps. Toddlers have fun as they practise balancing on beams in the garden, and begin to learn about capacity as staff introduce them to mathematical words, such as full and empty. Older children are encouraged by staff to use their critical thinking skills when they stack small bricks and count how many they have.

Staff give high pri...ority to supporting children's speech and language skills. They use commentary as children play, repeat back words children struggle to use, and ask questions to allow children to practise what they have learned.The daily routine is familiar to children.

It threads through each room to aid smooth transitions as children move through the nursery. This helps children to feel safe and secure. Children show good behaviour.

Staff endeavour to help them to learn what is right and wrong, through positive role modelling and interactions. Staff are consistent in their messages in terms of expectations on behaviour across the nursery, such as using kind hands and listening ears. This helps children to know what is expected of them as they transition from one room to the next.

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

Toddlers immerse themselves in the fun learning activities the skilled staff provide them with. They learn about the world around them as they pick petals from real flowers and push them into dough. Staff introduce new words to them, such as stem and petal, praising them as they repeat and use these words in their play.

Overall, all children benefit from meaningful learning opportunities across the curriculum. Staff implement a clear and appropriate curriculum to prepare children well for the next stage in their learning. It reflects children's interests and what staff identify children need to learn next.

However, at times some staff are more focused on what they want the child to learn as opposed to what the children actually need to learn. This results in some play being either too complex or not complex enough.Overall, staff provide activities within the daily routine to help children develop their independence.

Toddlers and pre-school children learn to serve themselves snacks and meals, as well as pouring their own drinks. They are encouraged to put on their own shoes and coats for outside play, and aprons. This helps children to do as much as possible for themselves.

However, staff do not encourage children to tidy away resources after they have finished with them. For example, staff pick things up for children when they discard toys on the floor without encouraging children to do this themselves. Therefore, there are few opportunities for children to learn how to care for their environment or the resources within this.

Partnerships with parents are good. Comments are positive about the caring, kind and supportive staff team. Parents talk about the good progress their children make and of the good settling in procedures offered.

Staff share ideas with parents on how to extend learning at home and also offer a book loaning scheme, to help children develop a love of reading. Staff make regular observations as children play, sharing these and photos, with parents to help to keep parents informed of their child's progress.The manager is a good role model to staff.

She spends time in all rooms, observing staff and offering ideas and advice on how to improve practice. The manager works hard to identify where improvements are needed, continually working on moving the setting forward. Staff comment that their well-being is promoted through good support from the manager and they feel valued.

The manager helps staff identify training through discussion and supervision, enabling them to continually build on their professional skills.Staff work closely with other agencies to ensure the provision offered for all children, including those children who have special educational needs and/or disabilities, meets their needs. This enables all children to make at least good progress in their learning and development.

Safeguarding

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

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: help staff to adapt their support to engage all children to enable them to become involved in activities appropriate to their needs and stage of learning help children to learn how to take more care and responsibility for the resources they use.