Poppin’s Day Care

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision is good

Children arrive happy and excited to play.

They wave goodbye to their parents and join their friends in the hall. Children demonstrate they feel safe and secure. They tell staff 'I love you' during the day.

Children play cooperatively and form close relationships with each other. For example, toddlers and pre-school-aged children pretend to be doctors and nurses. They place bandages and plasters on staff.

Children are kind and attend to their 'patient'.Leaders have made good improvements since the last inspection. All staff have attended training on how to deliver an effective curriculum.

Leaders coac...h staff and use peer-on-peer observations to improve their practice. There is a well-designed curriculum that builds on what children know and need to learn next. Staff identify children's next steps of development.

They provide activities to help children make progress and meet their individual learning needs. Staff regularly assess and review children's development to ensure their next steps are appropriate and achievable.Parents value the regular updates on their children's learning via a digital app and daily feedback from staff.

They welcome the advice on how to support their children's learning at home. Parents comment that their children have grown in confidence since attending.

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

Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities effectively.

They work closely with parents and other professionals. They recognise children's preferred ways of learning and use these to help children make progress. For example, staff provide physical challenges such as jumping or ball games for children that respond well to active learning.

Staff support babies' communication and language development effectively. Babies like to be imaginative in the role-play kitchen. Staff name the pretend items babies pick up such as 'salt' and 'pepper'.

Babies say 'cup' and staff repeat this word back to them to strengthen their pronunciation. However, staff do not always support toddlers and pre-school-aged communication and language skills as effectively. They do not give them enough time to respond to questions and extend their vocabulary further.

For example, at times, staff ask children many questions one after the other, and children do not have an opportunity to answer.Staff teach toddlers and pre-school-aged children positional language. They make a 'village' with children and plan where the castle and the police station will go.

Children decide if the castle will go 'beside' or 'in the middle'. Staff extend children's knowledge of where they live. They talk about the types of buildings they all live in.

Children learn about what makes them unique. They talk about their homes and the colours of their front doors.Children know the setting's rules and routines.

Staff share the plan for the day with children and remind them to use their 'listening ears' when appropriate. Children are independent. They know to wash their hands before snack time.

Children learn how to peel a banana. Staff encourage children to pour milk from a jug into a cup. This helps to prepare them for their future learning.

Staff play a game with toddlers and pre-school-aged children to broaden their knowledge of numbers. They tell the children the rules of the game. Children listen and follow the instructions.

They throw a bean bag onto a hopscotch. Children hop and jump towards the number the bean bag lands on. They say the number when they get there and hold up the same number of fingers to match.

However, staff do not engage all toddlers and pre-school-aged children in sustained play to improve their focus and extend their learning further. For example, at times, children flit between activities. Staff miss opportunities to challenge these children.

Leaders establish links with local schools. Children visit schools and look at their uniforms. This eases the transition when they move on to their next stage of education.

Children learn about the local community through trips and outings. They walk to the library. Children thoroughly enjoy borrowing books to take back to the setting and read together.

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: support toddlers and pre-school-aged children's communication and language skills, by giving them enough time to respond to questions and extend their vocabulary further develop ways to engage all toddlers and pre-school-aged children in sustained play to improve their focus and extend their learning further.