Happy Days Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children settle easily and are happy.

Younger children develop close attachments to their key person and they know when to seek their support. Older children display high levels of confidence as they move around freely to explore. They learn to lead their play and they willingly engage with other children and take turns to use resources.

Children display positive attitudes to learning. They explore with a wide range of resources, both indoors and outside, that help to support their development. For example, older children use their imaginations well as they pretend to care for and feed their dolls.

Children en...joy an autumn walk to the local park with staff and their parents. They learn about nature and changes that occur during the seasons. The manager and staff have high expectations for children, overall, and provide high-quality care and education.

Older children develop good literacy and mathematical skills, in preparation for their move on to school. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities benefit from good partnership working with other professionals. They make good progress with their development in relation to their starting points.

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

Staff observe, assess and plan children's learning well, overall. They provide stimulating opportunities for children to enjoy and to acquire the required skills to help them move on to the next stages in their learning.Staff provide a wide range of materials and media for children to creatively explore and use their imagination.

For example, children enjoy splash painting and they pretend to use technology, such as a telephone.Staff plan activities for older children to develop their mathematical skills effectively. For example, they teach them to count, recognise different sizes and measure their height.

Staff provide good opportunities to support children's early writing skills. For example, children practise making marks from a young age, and, as they get older, they recognise and write letters in their name.Staff arrange regular access to physical play for children to make small and large movements with their body and to help strengthen their control, balance and mobility.

Overall, older children develop their social skills well. They learn to form close friendships and play cooperatively with other children. Staff allow them to make decisions about the resources that they want to use and to take responsibility for their play.

Staff encourage children to manage their own personal care needs, such as washing their hands and feeding themselves. This helps to develop children's independence and confidence as they learn to do small tasks for themselves.Staff work effectively together to implement the daily routines, policies and procedures.

They move around to support children during their play, and they make children aware of what they will do next to enable a smooth transition between activities and routine tasks.Staff arrange opportunities for parents to join activities at the setting to share aspects of their cultures, in order to support children's growing awareness of the similarities and differences between families.The manager monitors children's progress effectively.

She offers support to help staff plan appropriate next steps to build on what children already know.Staff develop strong relationships with parents and other professionals. They work closely together to share information and plan targets to support individual children's learning and development.

Staff benefit from ongoing supervision meetings, guidance and development opportunities to help enhance their knowledge and skills. The manager ensures that staff are happy and they are clear about their responsibilities to provide a high-quality service.Although children behave well, staff miss some opportunities to encourage positive behaviours, such as using 'please' and 'thank you' at appropriate times.

Staff miss some opportunities to encourage younger children to be vocal and to repeat new words in order to strengthen their speech and language development.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The manager ensures staff have a secure understanding of their responsibilities to safeguard and protect children.

Staff complete thorough risk assessments of the premises and external trips to keep children safe. Staff have a secure knowledge of child protection issues and they know how to report any concerns and allegations to the relevant authorities. Robust recruitment processes are in place to ensure staff are suitable to work with children.

The manager ensures staff are deployed effectively and children are supervised well. She ensures parents and staff are familiar with the safeguarding policy and procedures so they know what is expected of them.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: strengthen support for children to develop positive behaviours and form good relationships with others make use of opportunities to encourage younger children to express themselves in order to develop their speaking skills further.