The Beaconsfield Day Nursery and Pre-School

Highlights from Latest Inspection

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The provision requires improvement Staff know children well and are in tune with their care needs.

However, children's individual learning and development are not precisely planned for. Babies and very young children benefit from warm, sensitive interactions during their care routines. For example, staff sing to babies while changing nappies.

Children's independence is promoted as they learn to wipe their hands before snack. Older children enjoy creating faces out of dough, which show a range of emotions, as they talk about feelings with staff. However, children do not make consistently good progress in their learning.

Staff are not fully confiden...t in their delivery of the provider's new curriculum. Currently, activities and experiences are not planned based on what children already know and can do.In general, children behave well.

However, staff are not consistent in teaching children to follow group rules, such as using 'indoor voices', listening to one another and taking turns during group activities. This leads to noise levels being particularly high, which impacts on children's listening and attention skills. All children demonstrate curiosity and are eager to learn and explore.

However, they have limited opportunities to access the full curriculum outside. Despite this, children are cared for by kind staff, who provide careful supervision and good support for their emotional well-being. Staff support children's risk taking during their play.

This helps them to understand the world around them and learn how to keep themselves safe. For example, children have opportunities to climb trees and tackle obstacle courses.

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

The implementation of the curriculum is not consistent.

While some staff demonstrate effective teaching skills, others lack a secure understanding of how children learn. This affects their teaching practice. As a result, the quality of education is variable.

Children do not always make the progress they are capable of. For example, children are not consistently taught how to understand the impact that their behaviour and actions have on others.The manager has identified a number of improvements that are required, including changes to staffing arrangements and increased monitoring of quality across the staff team.

However, these have not yet been embedded, and so their impact on outcomes for children are not yet known.Support for children's communication and language is varied. Children enjoy listening to stories and show good recall of popular songs and fairy tales.

Older children are able to recognise letters and sounds and are beginning to act out familiar characters in front of their friends, singing songs such as 'silly soup' confidently. However, staff do not focus their support precisely enough on children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) to develop their communication and language skills. Progress for children with SEND and toddlers is slower, and they are at risk of falling behind in their learning.

Overall, children benefit from a good level of care provided by familiar staff. Leaders have identified children's independence skills as a clear focus, but staff are not fully successful in achieving this. Children show developing levels of independence as they tidy away plates after snack, and some self-serve their own meals.

However, they do not receive consistent encouragement to independently attempt tasks that they are capable of, as some staff step in and do these for them. Children learn about hygiene routines from a very young age and show good levels of responsibility for self-care tasks, such as handwashing before eating.Staff promote children's good health and physical development well.

Children enjoy healthy, balanced meals that reflect their dietary needs. They enjoy accessing the outdoor area daily. Outdoors, children's physical development is supported as they skilfully climb to the top of the climbing wall or demonstrate good attention to managing risks safely as they climb the trees.

Babies and young children have indoor and outdoor climbing frames. However, staff do not optimise the use of the outdoor learning environment to offer a rich and varied range of experiences for children who prefer to play outside.Staff form friendly relationships with parents.

There is a range of systems in place for sharing information with parents regarding their children's learning and development. Parents say they are happy with the care provided. They particularly value extra-curricular events, such as welfare days and the introduction of baking classes with the new nursery chef.

Staff report favourably on their working arrangements and the support they receive from the new manager. The manager has implemented a range of well-being initiatives. She is working with the provider to ensure that staff access the opportunities available to them to continuously keep their training, skills and knowledge up to date and work towards recognised qualifications.

Safeguarding

The arrangements for safeguarding are effective.Staff with safeguarding responsibilities demonstrate secure knowledge and act swiftly to promote the welfare of children. The required staff-to-child ratios are maintained.

The provider has completed appropriate vetting procedures for staff. Staff complete regular safeguarding training. They understand how and when to identify a concern about a child or the behaviour of another adult.

There are suitable risk assessments in place to ensure that the environment, resources and staffing are fit for purpose and suitable. Staff supervise children well, particularly while they sleep and during mealtimes.

What does the setting need to do to improve?

To further improve the quality of the early years provision, the provider should: nimprove the quality of teaching so that staff understand how to plan challenging activities to meet children's individual learning needs, particularly with regard to children with SEND develop a more consistent approach to managing children's behaviour nenhance the organisation of the outdoor environment to provide more precise learning opportunities for children who prefer to learn outdoors.