Munchkins Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children happily move around the safe and secure environment. Parents and children are warmly welcomed, and children settle quickly. They have secure emotional attachments to the nurturing staff.

Staff work closely with parents to mirror younger children's home care routines. Children aged over two years readily find the butterfly with their name and photograph on to self-register. They confidently place their belongings on their labelled coat peg.

Overall, staff have high expectations for children, and their qualifications have a generally positive impact on practice. Children aged over two years take part in a wealth... of activities that motivate and engage them, prepare them well for future learning and build on their abilities. However, practice is not as strong in the baby room.

Parents are very well informed about, and involved in, their children's learning.Toddlers enjoy exploring materials together, using all of their senses. They learn to share.

Children enjoy setting up for lunch and serving the hearty, home-made chilli and rice. They behave well and thrive on initiatives such as the 'Star of the Day' smiley face chart. Children build early friendships.

For example, they play imaginatively in the mud kitchen and while making pretend lemonade with real fruit in the water tray. Children love singing and sharing stories with staff.

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

As part of the varied curriculum, children go on outings, such as to the church, garden centre, café and library.

Furthermore, visitors, including the police, fire service and those who deliver pet workshops and music sessions, enrich children's learning.Staff support children's mathematical and literacy skills well in readiness for school. Children practise writing their name and use mathematical language while making mud pies and counting lemons.

Toddlers enjoy exploring adult-planned activities, such as shredded paper and those they access when visiting the room for older children. However, general resources in the baby room do not provide older toddlers with the highest levels of challenge. At times, this room is not visually calm and orderly to consistently aid focus and concentration.

Toddlers develop small-muscle skills in readiness for future writing. They competently use their spoon and fork, and make marks with paint using pom-poms attached to pegs, car wheels and rubber balls. Older toddlers delight in squeezing dough, and two-year-olds create simple models, such as a mouse or wiggly worm.

Staff support children's moves to other early years settings or school effectively, to promote their emotional well-being. For example, they create photograph booklets for each school and share transition reports. However, staff do not maximise partnership working with other providers where there is shared care of the children.

The manager and the provider evaluate certain aspects of practice well to identify future improvements. Staff are currently creating room development plans to contribute to self-evaluation. There are systems to monitor staff's practice.

However, these are not yet fully effective in precisely targeting how teaching, including staff's questioning, can be optimised.Parents receive good-quality information, for instance, through their child's daily diary, parents' evenings and learning logs. Parents also borrow home-learning baskets, created around their child's interests or next steps in learning.

This initiative arose from staff training. Questionnaires encourage parents to share their views.Staff encourage healthy living.

For example, children have an excellent diet and prepare food such as home-made pizza and pasta bake. They learn about where food comes from as they harvest vegetables and sample exotic fruits and cultural dishes from around the world.Children learn about their own and others' uniqueness.

For example, toddlers look at family photograph booklets, developed to contribute to effective settling-in processes. Children create self-portraits as part of the 'All About Me' topic and engage in charity events, such as World Book Day.Staff continually observe and assess children's progress.

They generally plan well for children's future learning, incorporating children's interests, comments and events from home. Staff focus on toddlers' fundamental skills, such as their social, communication and physical skills. Toddlers babble away to staff's conversations and while sharing stories and songs.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The provider has rigorous recruitment procedures to ensure the suitability of staff. Access to the nursery is stringently monitored, for instance, through the video intercom system.

Staff minimise hazards through effective risk assessments. For example, the nursery garden is fully enclosed, enabling children over two years to move freely between indoors and outdoors. Staff have regular safeguarding training to keep their good knowledge of child protection issues updated.

They confidently identify possible indicators of abuse and fully understand both internal and external reporting procedures. This helps to promote children's welfare and keep them safe.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: provide greater challenge for older toddlers to optimise their learning, and consider improved presentation of the room, to help promote good concentration strengthen partnership working with other providers, to enhance children's moves between settings and support a consistent approach to care and learning strengthen monitoring of staff practice to provide a more precisely targeted approach to individual continued professional development.