Nic and Tim Childcare

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children enjoy their time at the nursery and gain a secure foundation for their future learning and school.

They eagerly involve friends in their play and have strong social skills. They are aware of the needs of others and hold the hands of friends who are less confident in completing an obstacle course. Children have good imaginations and develop interesting storylines in their play.

They create a wedding-themed role play, dress up in costumes and make a wedding feast. Staff help children to explore and challenge their ideas about weddings, and how people can choose whomever they wish to marry, regardless of gender. ...Children behave well and staff help them to understand how their actions can affect others.

This includes learning how to control more energetic play, risk assess and be aware of other children playing around them. Children learn about following good hygiene routines and remind friends about the importance of washing their hands before eating and after using the toilet. They gain good levels of independence and manage their personal care routines well.

Older children help to prepare their own snacks, such as pouring drinks and putting spread on their pitta bread. Babies and toddlers understand how to use tools at mealtimes to feed themselves. They know that they need to put on their shoes and attempt to do this for themselves.

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

The manager, who is also the provider, reflects effectively on the quality of the provision and values the contributions that parents and staff make to this process. She reviews the provision for children thoroughly and identifies areas to develop. For example, she worked with staff to review how well snack time was working and made effective changes to give children the choice of when they stop playing to have snack.

The manager monitors the quality of teaching well and provides staff with good support to develop their good teaching skills further. Recent training helped staff to review how they communicate with children to enhance their play, including how they use questions. However, they have not identified how to adjust their teaching to fully respond to the different ways that children at different ages and stages of development prefer to learn.

Partnership working is strong. Staff work closely with parents to support children's continued learning at home and involve them in the assessment of children's achievements. Parents speak highly of the positive relationships children and staff have, and how their children are helped to progress.

The manager liaises well with other professionals involved in children's care and links successfully with the primary school. She works closely with teachers to identify how the nursery can best prepare children for the transition into the Reception class.The manager and staff monitor the progress that children make to accurately identify what children need to learn next.

However, this assessment information is not shared as well as possible with other staff members to help them to identify how to best support children in their self-chosen play.Staff provide a good range of opportunities for children to practise their physical skills. Children enjoy using sponges and soap to wash dolls and learn about their own self-care.

Toddlers concentrate as they use pipettes to squirt water onto the dolls to wash away the bubbles. Children thoroughly enjoy the opportunities to use their larger muscles as they work together to carry large equipment, such as planks of wood. They use their mathematical understanding of measures to solve problems as they design and build interesting obstacle courses.

Children gain good levels of emotional awareness. Staff successfully help them to explore a range of feelings, such as being happy, sad or embarrassed, and how it is all right to have these feelings. Children learn useful strategies to help them to relax and clear their minds.

Children progress well with their communication and language development. The manager quickly identifies any gaps in children's communication skills and takes prompt and effective action to help children to overcome any difficulties they have. Older children explore how plants grow and change over time, including death and decay.

They talk about the parts of a flowering plant and use the correct terms to label the roots, bulb, stem and petals.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The manager and staff have a good knowledge of child protection matters and how to report concerns about a child's welfare.

They understand about the various signs of abuse, including those linked to online concerns and wider safeguarding issues. They work with parents to help them identify and minimise risks to children when they access online activities. The manager and staff have effective procedures in place to manage allegations and concerns about staff conduct.

The manager ensures the premises are safe and secure and that staff complete thorough risk assessments so that children can play safely. Leaders implement safer recruitment procedures to check the suitability of all staff.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: consider the different ways that children at different ages and stages of development prefer to learn, to plan activities that fully challenge them and captivate their interest review and enhance arrangements for sharing children's next steps with other staff to help provide continuity and maximise the learning potential during independent play.

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