Tiptoes Day Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

On arrival, children are happy and are supported to separate from their parent or carer. Children are confident as they play and learn in this nursery. Staff provide a bright and welcoming environment and engage them in activities, conversation and learning throughout the day.

Children enjoy a variety of activities across all areas of learning; they think of imaginative ways to enhance experiences that bring a sense of wonder and exploration. For example, younger children discover new types of vehicles in the construction area and push vehicles through the breakfast cereal to make patterns and tracks. Children behave well.
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They understand the nursery's boundaries and follow staff instructions confidently. Children are caring towards each other and demonstrate that they understand the need to take turns and share. When two children want the same piece of equipment or resources, staff help them to wait and count how many turns, so that they can monitor how long they have left before passing the toy to another child.

This helps children to begin taking responsibility for managing turn taking and sharing. Children listen attentively as staff read them a familiar story. They enthusiastically join in with familiar parts, using props to role model the actions and the characters in the book.

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

The manager and staff know the children exceptionally well. Staff interaction with children is warm, caring and nurturing. They are enthusiastic and praise children for their efforts, achievements and positive behaviour.

There is a clear curriculum to support children's learning and development, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Children make good progress over time. They participate in their learning with enjoyment, as staff build on what they already know and can do.

For example, when children explore play dough, they talk about what is feels like, such as 'dry', 'squidgy', `sticky' and 'soft' and describe their actions, such as 'patting', 'squeezing' and 'rolling'.The effective key-person system helps to ensure that children's emotional well-being is supported effectively.Children of all ages enjoy healthy and nutritious meals.

Older children know that they need to wash their hands before eating, to reduce the risk of infection. However, staff do not consistently encourage older children to further develop their independence skills. For example, meals and snacks, such as cucumber, are already prepared and placed in front of the children.

This limits the opportunities for older children to develop serving and cutting skills.The manager leads her staff team well. Staff say they feel valued and supported in their role by the manager and other colleagues.

The manager is hands-on and is an excellent role model for staff, offering them help and guidance. She regularly completes observations of staff and has meetings to discuss how they can improve their practice.Staff have high expectations for all aspects of children's achievement.

Overall, they plan effectively to help children progress in all aspects of their learning. They provide activities to meet children's next steps in learning to help them make progress. For instance, staff promote children's communication and language development well.

They speak clearly with good expression, repeating words and singing songs. However, sometimes, staff do not extend on their interactions or provide consistent support to younger children.Parents are consistent in their praise for the nursery and the positive impact it has had on their children's development.

They explain how they receive lots of information about how their children are progressing, what they are interested in, and how to help them extend their learning at home. They say their children have progressed well in purposeful play and become much more confident and sociable since starting at the nursery.Children enjoy their time outside, there are plenty of resources for the children to explore, such as a mud kitchen.

The children make imaginative and colourful potions. They run, take turns on wheeled toys and balance on logs.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.

The manager and staff demonstrate good knowledge of their safeguarding responsibilities. They regularly update and improve their child protection knowledge, for example through training and in-house discussions. Staff recognise the signs and symptoms that would alert them to a child being abused or mistreated and to wider safeguarding issues, such as female genital mutilation.

They take appropriate action if they have concerns about a child's safety or well-being. The manager conducts robust suitability checks when recruiting new staff and carries out a thorough induction to ensure all staff understand the nursery's safeguarding policies, for example, safeguarding questions are embedded within staff supervisions.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nensure that staff consistently encourage older children to further develop their independence skills, particularly at mealtimes provide further opportunities for younger children to promote their interactions.