Green Shoots Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

The manager has worked hard to address weaknesses identified at the previous inspection. This contributes to children's safety and ensures the provision is well managed in her absence.

She has broadened opportunities for staff to develop their professional practice, which helps to maintain a good quality of teaching overall. However, staff training plans are not always tailored effectively for their individual needs. Staff provide a wide range of activities and resources to support children's learning and have high expectations for all children.

This includes children who speak English as an additional language. Staff ...support children's communication skills well. For instance, during activities they introduce descriptive words then ask questions to encourage children to use this new language.

This helps children develop a broad and varied vocabulary. Staff form effective partnerships with parents. They ask parents about children's individual needs and abilities when they join the nursery to support their care and learning from the start.

However, staff are not always fully effective in keeping parents informed about their children's daily routines and activities. Children are curious and imaginative. They make independent choices from the activities and resources, and move confidently from one area to another, indoors and outdoors.

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

The manager has strengthened systems to supervise staff. Staff have attended training, including on how to keep children safe from extreme views and radicalisation. They successfully share information with their colleagues, to help develop new ways of teaching.

However, the manager does not always use what she knows about staff's individual strengths and weaknesses to help them develop teaching to the highest levels.The manager and staff evaluate the provision regularly and make effective plans to improve the children's learning and enjoyment. However, they do not consistently seek parents' views to help them develop the service.

Parents comment on the caring relationships between staff and children, which help to nurture children's emotional well-being effectively. Children show that they feel safe and secure with staff, such as when they snuggle up next to them for stories or ask them for help with tasks.Communication between parents and staff is generally good.

Parents say they have termly meetings, where staff tell them about children's progress and what they need to learn next. However, some parents comment that staff do not always keep them well informed about children's daily routines, such as what they ate or played with, to support continuity in their care and learning at home.Staff promote children's interest in reading well.

For example, they provide a wide selection of books for children to look at independently and read these with them frequently throughout the day. They help older children to understand that print carries meaning, for example by following cooking instructions on food packaging.Children are enthusiastic learners and show high levels of interest and engagement in their play.

For example, older children spent a long time making 'cakes' out of play dough. They explored how to mould the dough so that their cakes would fit into the different-shaped containers. Children improvised using a box as a pretend oven and beanbags as oven gloves.

Children behave well and express their feelings and emotions in positive ways. They become increasingly aware of how to keep healthy and safe. For example, after singing a song about lollipops, staff and children shared their ideas about why they brush their teeth.

The nursery provides healthy meals, which supports children to make positive choices about what they eat. Children have daily access to outdoor play in the nursery garden and on visits to local parks, which helps them to enjoy active lifestyles.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

The manager has strengthened the recruitment procedures for new staff to include checks on their suitability from previous employers. Staff have attended relevant training and have a secure understanding of what to do if they are concerned about a child's welfare, including where children may be exposed to extreme or radical views. They know the procedures to follow if they have concerns about another member of staff.

The manager makes good use of team meetings to check staff's safeguarding knowledge and review child protection procedures with them. Staff vigilantly carry out daily checks to ensure the nursery is safe and risks to children are minimised.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: continue to improve the systems for monitoring and supporting staff's performance to focus sharply on the individual learning needs of staff, to help them develop their professional skills to the highest levels develop further the systems for exchanging information about children's routines and learning with parents, to strengthen the consistency between home and nursery nactively seek parents' views, to help inform self-evaluation and develop plans to improve the provision.