Country Day Nurseries

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children enjoy the fun-filled learning at this homely and welcoming nursery. They feel safe and secure as they freely choose from a range of interesting activities on offer.

Children form affectionate bonds with staff, who are responsive to their needs. They learn to play cooperatively with their friends and invite them into their play. They freely explore the exciting learning spaces, where they can relax, handle natural objects and engage in physical exercise.

This helps to promote their good health and emotional well-being. Children love being outside and enjoy the fresh air. They go to the woodland area and watch b...irds through binoculars.

They persevere until they find one and show great delight when they spot them. Children's physical skills are well developed as they run, balance and scoot around on their bicycles. Children develop a love for reading from the outset.

They listen intently and point at pictures from their favourite stories when shared in the garden. Children make good progress in their learning and development.Children's behave well and are respectful to others.

They welcome visitors and happily engage in discussions to find out more about them. Children's efforts are constantly praised and their achievements celebrated. This helps them to understand that they are unique and valued.

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

Leaders and staff ensure that the curriculum children receive is based on their interests and needs. They have worked together to devise a sequenced curriculum to support children to achieve their best at each stage. For example, younger children learn about happy and sad emotions.

Older children develop an understanding of how their actions can affect others. They consider how to help children who may be sad, to feel happy again.Staff interact with children in a sensitive and caring way.

However, they do not always capture opportunities to extend individual children's learning when interacting with them. For instance, older children demonstrate the ability to correctly name the number of objects in a set of five, purely by sight with no need to count them individually. They clearly show that they have reached a higher level in their mathematical knowledge.

This skill was not recognised by staff and children were asked to count each object one by one. This illustrates that staff do not consider all opportunities to maximise children's progress.Leaders fully understand the importance of parents working closely with staff for support in children's learning.

They offer stay-and-play sessions to parents to know what their children are learning. This helps to deepen parents' knowledge on how young children learn and how they can complement their children's learning at nursery. Parents highly value the education and care the nursery provides.

They say that the communication from staff through daily updates online, as well as weekly newsletters, is 'excellent'. They are impressed with the progress their children make, particularly in their confidence and social skills.Staff are passionate and want to develop their knowledge and skills further.

Leaders support them to access a wealth of training opportunities. They monitor staff's performance and give them feedback. However, leaders do not have effective systems in place to precisely identify areas for improvement for individual staff, to enhance their curriculum delivery further.

Children are well prepared for the next stage in their education. They develop into confident and independent individuals, who can take care of their own personal needs. Older children get changed into their physical education kits without help.

They learn about 'golden rules', such as using 'walking feet' to keep safe when indoors. Younger children handle real objects in their play. For example, they learn about lemons and limes as they feel, taste and smell them.

Older children confidently hold interesting conversations with staff and among their friends. This illustrates that children possess good foundations of knowledge and skills on which to build.Children learn about different languages and cultures represented in the wider world.

They hear French phrases and use them correctly, such as 'Je m'appelle' meaning, 'my name is' in English. This helps to prepare children for life in modern Britain.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

Leaders attend regular child protection training. They have a secure understanding of their responsibility to protect children from harm. Staff recognise the potential signs and symptoms of abuse, including the risk of being exposed to extremist views and behaviours.

They understand the local procedures to follow should they need to seek further help or to report any concerns. Staff ensure that children are able to play in a safe and secure environment. They carry out regular risk assessments, indoors and outdoors.

Leaders follow robust safe recruitment procedures. The suitability of staff to work with children is checked as part of their ongoing vetting processes.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nextend children's learning by providing even higher level of challenge in activities to inspire them to excel in their learning strengthen systems to identify and enhance professional development opportunities for individual staff to improve their practice further and maximise children's learning.