Four Brooks Day Nursery - Tommies Childcare

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children are happy in this setting. They build strong relationships with staff.

This helps children to feel safe and secure in their care. Children become autonomous learners, spending time exploring and investigating the stimulating resources. Older children confidently select the range of resources they need, to build on and extend their play experiences with their peers.

For example, they create a picnic for their dolls, arranging the toys, and use real-life foods to feed them with, particularly in pre-school.Children develop their speech with increasing skill. Older children readily talk with staff and each other a...bout what they are playing with.

They make and agree plans for what will happen next during their games. Children become increasingly independent. They manage their own personal care needs with little support.

They make decisions about the resources they play with and how. Children show high levels of engagement in their chosen activities.Children behave exceptionally well.

They respond well to the occasional guidance from staff. Children routinely use good manners, saying 'please' and 'thank you'. Children are considerate of others and willingly take turns.

Children gain the skills and understanding they need to move on to their next stages in learning and their eventual move on to school.

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

The manager is passionate about the work of the setting. She has designed a well-thought-through and ambitious curriculum with clear intent for children's learning at all stages.

Staff have a strong understanding of the curriculum and the sequence of steps children need to learn to make progress.Staff know the children very well. They gain useful information from parents when children first start about what children know and can do.

They use this information to make effective plans to build on children's learning. Activities and experiences focus specifically on what children need to learn next. As a result, all children make good progress from their starting points.

High focus is placed on communication and language development. Managers and staff are proactive in their approach to help children to become skilled communicators. They use a range of activities, such as stories, songs and rhymes, as well as two-way conversation, to help children to make progress.

For children in need of some additional support and those who speak English as an additional language, staff use additional speech and language programmes which help to focus their teaching and help children to quickly catch up.Babies have fun and enjoy taking part in singing and movement sessions. They closely observe staff when they say and do the actions while they sing.

Babies eagerly follow these actions and giggle as they 'stomp' and 'clap' to the rhythm.Children of all ages are encouraged to complete tasks for themselves. For example, almost all babies feed themselves with appropriate cutlery.

Older children collect their own cutlery and serve themselves. They learn about portion control. Children dress themselves with increasing skill.

They readily help to tidy toys away when it is time. This helps to develop their independence and support their positive self-esteem.Staff provide well to facilitate imaginative play.

Children show an interest in a range of play scenarios with dolls. They move on to set out blankets, plates and other items to create a picnic, using the real foods available. Staff build on this interest and provide the resources for children to make sandwiches.

Children are eager to take part. They also develop their physical skills, for example by spreading butter and cutting their bread, using knives safely.Managers provide good support for staff to continue with their professional development.

They have used their effective monitoring to identify some areas for improvement within the staff team. They have plans to raise the quality of teaching to a consistently high level across all areas of the nursery. However, some of this support has not yet been implemented.

Parents speak highly of the nursery. They say their children are very happy attending. Parents are especially complimentary about the information they receive about their child's care and learning from the system they access online and the verbal feedback from staff.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff understand their responsibilities to protect children from the risks of harm. They have a strong understanding of signs and symptoms that indicate a child may be at risk of harm.

They know the local procedures to report concerns about a child's welfare, including how to escalate these concerns if needed. All staff know the procedures to report concerns about the conduct of a colleague and how to report these concerns to their local safeguarding partnership. Routine checks are made in the environment to ensure it is safe for children to attend.

Recruitment procedures are robust. This includes the background checks that are carried out to ensure that those working with children are suitable.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: build further on the support and coaching provided to staff to increase the quality of teaching to the highest possible level across all areas of the nursery so that children gain the benefit and make the best possible progress.