Toddler Town Nursery

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children who attend this nursery receive good quality care and learning.

They are warmly welcomed as they arrive, by friendly staff who are attentive to children's individual needs and routines. Children build close relationships and experience lovely, warm interactions with staff. They seek out staff for a cuddle when they are tired or need reassurance.

As a result, children settle quickly. Children behave well and are polite and kind to their friends. They share and take turns during games.

Children help to tidy away. They talk to their friends as they complete the task and older children show their younger ...peers where to put the toys. Children receive praise and encouragement from staff.

This helps to develop their confidence and raise their self-esteem. Children choose what they want to play with from a range of activities that cover all areas of learning. They play happily and are generally interested in the activities available to them.

Older children thoroughly enjoy playing in coloured cornflour and water. They use paintbrushes, toy animals and combs to make marks. This helps to develop early mark-making skills in preparation for writing.

Younger children explore bubble wrap and paint. They have great fun as they pop the bubbles and watch the paint spread out to make patterns underneath it. This helps to develop children's curiosity.

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

There have been recent changes to the management and staffing structure. The new manager is confident and experienced. She has a clear vision for change and has worked closely with the local authority school's advisor to implement significant changes in a short time.

However, these are still in their infancy and are not yet fully embedded into practice to ensure quality continues to improve. The provider, who is also the nominated individual, is very involved with the running of the nursery. He is committed to supporting the changes and, with the manager, strives to provide children with the very best care and learning.

The manager has a good overview of what she wants children to learn. She observes staff practice and uses this to identify any training needs. She works to staff's individual interests and strengths.

This helps to create a workforce who are motivated and enjoy their role. The manager has introduced more frequent supervision meetings and online training to provide staff with continual support and professional development opportunities.The manager has recently implemented changes to the way staff plan activities and observe children's progress.

Staff now plan activities based on children's individual interests and next steps for learning and incorporate a letter and story of the week. Staff evaluate activities and include the children's voice as they ask them what they have enjoyed. They use these comments and observations to make further improvement, so that every child makes good progress.

The care and support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is superb. The special educational needs coordinator is knowledgeable and experienced. She attends training and carries out research to gain additional knowledge.

She supports staff, shares her knowledge with them and works with other professionals to ensure children receive the very best care and make the progress they are capable of.Children look at books and listen to stories. They become familiar with stories because staff introduce a book of the week.

Staff extend stories as they provide activities for children to explore that relate to the story. However, sometimes, story times and activities for older children are not organised well enough to enable them to fully participate or gain the most from the experience.Staff work closely with parents.

They share information with them about what their child has done during the day. However, not all parents are aware of their child's next steps for learning or how to continue with their child's learning at home. That said, parents speak highly of the care their children receive and say that children really enjoy attending.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.The manager, nominated individual and staff have a good understanding of safeguarding. They can name and recognise signs that may indicate a child is being abused or neglected and know the procedures to follow if they have a concern.

They understand that it is everyone's responsibility to protect the children in their care. Staff undertake regular safeguarding training to ensure their knowledge is up to date. The premises are safe and secure.

Security systems are in place to ensure unauthorised persons cannot access the premises and children cannot leave unsupervised. Robust recruitment procedures mean that everyone working with the children is safe and suitable.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nembed and monitor the newly implemented changes to ensure practice continually improves review the organisation of activities, especially for older children, so that they can participate fully and gain the very best experiences that help them to learn provide parents with information about their children's next steps and how they can continue to support children's learning at home.