Sunny Days Preschool Nursery Ltd

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children are happy and content in this warm and welcoming nursery.

They enter the nursery full of excitement and are eager to learn. They try new things, such as making Christmas decorations out of salt dough, and join in adult-led activities willingly. For example, at story time, older children sit and listen to well-read stories.

They concentrate and join in, repeating rhyming words from a story about a witch and a broom. They giggle and laugh and show they are fully enjoying this activity. Staff have high expectations for all children.

They know them well and plan a wide range of interesting opportunities t...o help promote their learning. For example, children thoroughly enjoy making their Christmas lists for Santa. They talk to each other and use their small muscular skills to stick on pictures of what they would like.

This ignites their imagination as they talk about decorating Christmas trees and seeing Santa's reindeers.Children display good behaviour and respond well to the nursery's routines. For instance, as soon as they return from playing in the safe garden, older children immediately go to wash their hands.

Young children make strong bonds with attentive staff. They often go for cuddles that reassure them and make them feel safe and secure.

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

The manager and director are ambitious and ensure children experience a planned and varied curriculum.

Staff follow children's interests and interact with them in a positive manner. They motivate children well and extend their learning to help them achieve. However, older children are not always challenged to further extend their understanding of mathematics, particularly linked to shape and measurement.

Staff support children's communication and language skills well. They sing nursery rhymes and songs with younger children. They provide older children with instructions to follow and engage them in purposeful conversations.

This helps to develop children's thinking and speaking skills. Staff discuss with children how to use the electronic tablets to take photographs. This results in conversations about children's own experiences at home and photographs of their family.

Children are confident and move around their rooms, self-selecting their own play from a range of activities. This helps them to develop independence skills from an early age. For example, children learn to put on their own coats and readily help themselves to water throughout the day.

However, staff do extend children's understanding of how to use small tools, in order to promote their independence to a greater level.Staff support children's enjoyment of healthy lifestyles. They ensure that children exercise and play outdoors daily.

Children enjoy active play. They climb large tyres, kick balls and weave in and out of cones. These activities help children's physical development.

Children make healthy choices at snack time and talk enthusiastically about their favourite fruit and how apples grow on trees.Staff offer opportunities that increase the children's current experiences from home. For example, children enjoy looking after 'Sunny the snail'.

They help clean out his home and feed him his breakfast, which they call his 'porridge'. This helps children who do not have pets to learn how to care for living things.Children are beginning to develop friendships.

They learn to play harmoniously together and to share and take turns. This is evident as younger children share the blocks to make bridges for their cars to go under. Children learn about diversity, which helps them to understand and respect differences between themselves and others.

This includes playing with multicultural resources and learning about religious festivals from around the world.The director and manager support staff in their professional development. They observe their practice and offer feedback on what they do well.

Advice is given on where they can improve their teaching further. Staff attend training to improve their performance. For example, they have attended a course linked to improving outcomes for younger children.

This has resulted in staff providing more sensory activities, such as 'glittery play dough'.Parent partnerships are strong. Staff encourage a regular two-way flow of information.

For example, they share children's achievements, next steps and the progress check for children aged between two and three years. This helps to support continuity of children's learning between the preschool and home.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

The manager and staff understand their responsibilities to keep children safe from harm. They have extended their knowledge through training on the wider issues associated with child protection. They understand the procedures to follow should they have a concern about a child in their care, or in the event that an allegation is made against a member of staff.

The director and manager follow robust recruitment procedures to ensure staff are suitable to work with children. The manager carries out risk assessment to ensure the premises is safe for children to play.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: provide higher levels of challenge to extend children's early mathematical skills, including their understanding of shapes and measurement nemphasise developing children's early independence to a greater level, with reference to using tools.