The Children’s Room Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Staff in the nursery work hard to provide a safe and fun learning environment for children. Overall, they focus on helping children to extend their knowledge and broaden their experiences. Children develop high levels of self-confidence and enjoy their learning.

Older children are keen to join in activities and wait eagerly to join in small-group sessions to extend their literacy skills. For example, children are highly engaged in the 'silly soup' activity. Everyone sings along and awaits their turn to pull out a card that rhymes with another card, such as mat and cat.

Staff skilfully ask children what else rhymes with... these words. This has a positive impact on their literacy knowledge, ready for their next steps in their learning and in preparation for school.Babies and toddlers demonstrate a strong sense of belonging.

They happily explore the environment indoors and outdoors making choices about their learning. Children develop strong bonds with their key person. They snuggle up with staff, enjoying songs and stories as well as quiet time during their day.

Staff know the children in their care extremely well. This enables them to make the most of their learning outcome. For example, each key person has developed an individual curriculum for the children in their care.

This helps them to identify any gaps in children's learning and supports their development effectively.

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

All children have many opportunities to explore and be outside. They enjoy nature walks, weekly sports sessions off site, and daily play in the nursery's outdoor areas.

Staff encourage and support children when balancing on beams and praise them for doing so. This helps to support their physical well-being and good health.Babies and toddlers enjoy practising their fine motor skills.

They have lots of fun creating bubbles by using a whisk and stirring it around a water and soap mixture. Staff sing songs to them to encourage their play and ignite their imagination.Parents speak highly of the staff at the setting and comment how much progress their children have made, for example with their communication and language skills.

They report that staff ensure that the nursery is inclusive. Staff work with parents and other professionals to help them to gather information about children's needs, in particular children that need additional support. Parents say that their children have been welcomed into nursery and they feel included.

Staff report that they feel well supported by the manager and provider. They have the opportunity to further develop their knowledge and expertise, and are supported when completing further training. Additionally, twice yearly the nursery shuts, and all members of staff attend training courses, for example about communication and language.

Nevertheless, monitoring of staff practice is less robust for less-experienced staff, which on occasion impacts on the quality of their interactions with younger children.Children learn about the local community and enjoy visits to the local shops. They see different people and places.

During discussion, the provider describes how she looks for new ideas to extend the learning opportunities for children within the community. For instance, in future she would like to introduce regular visits to a nearby retirement home. This will further help to sustain vital relationships with the local community and continue to provide children with boundless opportunities to make meaningful connections with others.

All children enjoy healthy, balanced meals and snacks cooked and prepared freshly on site. Staff follow good procedures to ensure that children with an intolerance or dietary requirement are catered for. Younger children feed themselves at mealtimes, while older children independently serve themselves from the bowls of food on the table.

Staff skilfully weave mathematical learning into the task by asking children to count how many helpings they are taking. This helps to promote their independence skills and promotes their mathematical skills from the onset. However, staff do not make the most of the opportunity to educate children about the healthy food that they are eating.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff at the nursery are committed to safeguarding children. They display good awareness of the signs and symptoms that might indicate that children are at risk of harm.

The provider operates a thorough induction procedure to ensure that those working with children are safe to do so. Ongoing training supports staff to continually refresh their good knowledge and skills. Staff are vigilant in keeping children safe.

The provider and the manager have implemented a headcount policy to make sure all children are safe and secure after playing in the nursery outdoor areas.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: strengthen systems for improving staff practice and raise the good quality of teaching to an even higher level, in particular with regard to less-experienced and newer members of staff.review opportunities to teach children about healthy eating during routine times.