Starfish Childrens Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff provide a welcoming environment.

Children are happy and engage in play. They demonstrate the strong bonds they have with staff as they talk to them and share their news. Children are confident, and they talk to staff about their emotions.

Staff encourage children to talk with them and share how they are feeling. If sad or cross, staff ask them why that might be and how they can change that. This helps children learn to self-regulate and manage their actions.

Staff plan activities that follow children's interests and support their next steps in learning. They interact with children, talk to them and encou...rage them to discuss what they are doing. For example, children join coloured blocks together to match a number and a shape on a card.

Staff count with them and support their problem-solving skills. They ask children to consider if they need to add or remove blocks to reach the right number. The daily routine is familiar to children.

This enables children to feel safe and secure. Staff gain information about babies' needs and routines. Babies cruise around the room and explore different objects and textures.

Staff focus on developing children's communication, their emotional well-being and their physical skills. Staff use repetition as a tool to aid in this process to further enhance children's learning. Staff encourage older children to undertake tasks by themselves.

This builds on their independence skills and supports them in being ready for school. Children make good progress in their learning and development.

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

There has been a big change recently in the management and staff, and they are all working well together as a team.

Management demonstrates a strong commitment to improving the provision. They are currently embedding several new initiatives, such as a parents' council, implementing new curriculum planning and a pre-school council to gain children's views. The action and the recommendation raised at the last inspection have been addressed effectively.

Staff know their key children well. They plan activities and experiences that support children to build on their current skills. There are support plans for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and these are overseen by the special educational needs coordinator.

Staff work as a team across the nursery and share information about what children need to learn next. This supports children to make good positive progress and assists them to have a smooth transition between rooms when the time comes.All children, even babies, enjoy looking at books.

Older children thoroughly enjoy sitting and listening to stories and confidently explain what will happen next. They help to turn the pages of their favourite stories, and older children confidently read out familiar words. Children enjoy making marks with pencils on paper and talk about how they like to paint.

However, children are less able to independently choose and explore a wide range of media and materials, such as scissors and paint, to express their creativity and imagination.Children enjoy healthy lifestyles and have access to several outside areas to build on their physical skills and learning. Children love to ride trikes and bikes around the roadway markings in the garden.

They enjoy digging in the dirt for 'treasure' and show their kindness to others by sharing spades or seeking other ones. Babies can go outside each day. However, they share an area that older children also use, and this can lead to bark and other smaller materials getting spread across the floor.

Staff minimise these potential risks but the time taken to do so restricts babies opportunities to play and learn outside.Staff act as positive role models and encourage children to be kind and respect each other from an early age. Children behave well and develop a good understanding of how to manage their own behaviour.

These are effective skills that children need for their future learning.Children learn about their similarities and differences and about cultures. For example, staff speak to children in their home language and also help other children learn some phrases to say when on their holidays.

This boosts children's self-esteem and confidence and expands their understanding of the world.Partnerships with parents are good. Management has spent time talking to parents, gathering their views and sharing the changes they are implementing.

They share daily information about children, such as sleep routines, bottles and food consumed. There is a new weekly update sent out to parents to enable them to know the activities that children have done and what is being planned. However, information-sharing about children's learning and development is variable and so does not fully support a consistent approach to meeting children's needs.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.There is an open and positive culture around safeguarding that puts children's interests first.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nincrease opportunities for children to independently explore a wide range of media and materials to express themselves, their creativity and imagination review and improve the garden area for babies to enable them to build further on their learning and development outside nembed new information-sharing processes with parents to keep them better informed about their children's learning and development and promote a more cohesive approach to meeting their children's needs.

Also at this postcode