Summary
What we read, and from where
Click a reading to see it highlighted in the report.
- Achievement verified
Expected standard
- Behaviour, attitudes and routines verified
Expected standard
- Children's welfare and wellbeing verified
Expected standard
- Curriculum and teaching verified
Expected standard
- Inclusion verified
Expected standard
- Leadership and governance verified
Expected standard
- Framework verified
Report card
- Group verified
Tops Day Nursery Limited
- Inspection datesingle source
8 Sept 2026
- Inspectors verified
Alanda Phillips
- Postcode verified
SP2 8BJ
- Name on report verified
Tops Salisbury
- Safeguarding verified
Met
- URN verified
EY546902
Deep dive
What this report says
In plain English
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Grade profile
Each judgement on its scale, weakest to strongest.
- AchievementExpected
- Behaviour, attitudes and routinesExpected
- Children's welfare and wellbeingExpected
- Curriculum and teachingExpected
- InclusionExpected
- Leadership and governanceExpected
Tone of the report
How positive or critical the inspectors' language is, from the words they chose. No AI involved.
In line with other reports of this type.
How the report reads, start to finish
Every paragraph in order, sized by length. Tap one to see it on the page.
Strengths
Quoted from the report. Tap to see it on the page.
- Leaders have ensured that there is now a culture of high expectations for behaviour across the setting. p.2
- Leaders' recent work in this area has been effective and staff are generally consistent and clear about what they need to see from children. p.2
- Staff act as effective role models and children benefit from lots of embedded positive praise to reinforce their choices. p.2
Concerns
Quoted from the report. Tap to see it on the page.
No strong criticism found.
Next steps
Quoted from the report. Tap to see it on the page.
- This setting has met the requirements of the compulsory part of the Childcare Register. p.4
- This setting has met the requirements of the voluntary part of Childcare Register. p.5
- Leaders should support staff to communicate effectively to deploy themselves effectively at all times. p.6
- Leaders should strengthen staff practice in identifying and reducing barriers to children's communication. p.6
- Leaders should strengthen staff understanding and use of children's home languages to support children's communication, settling and transitions. p.6
What the report dwells on
Topics by how often they come up, coloured by how they are described. Open one for an example.
Parents & families11
“Leaders ensure that partnerships with parents are effective.” p.4Reading & phonics5
“Children develop a real love of books.” p.3
Anatomy of the report
How the report is built, against others of the same type and grade.
- Pages
- 8
- Words of findings
- 1,783
- about usual (typical 1698)
- Reading level
- Fairly hard
- Flesch 52, typical 43
- Average sentence
- 15 words
- Next steps
- 5
- typical 3
- Hedged sentences
- 6%
- “some”, “not always”, “most”…
Where the words go
Full report text
Tops Salisbury
Unique reference number (URN): EY546902 Address: Salisbury District Hospital, Salisbury, SP2 8BJ Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registered with Ofsted: 09/06/2017 Registers: EYR, CCR, VCR Registered person: Tops Day Nursery Limited
p.1
Safeguarding standards met
The safeguarding standards are met. This means that leaders and/or those responsible for governance and oversight fulfil their specific responsibilities and have established an open culture in which safeguarding is everyone's responsibility and concerns are actively identified, acted upon and managed. As a result, children are made safer and feel safe.
p.1
How we evaluate safeguarding
When we inspect settings for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:
p.1
How we evaluate safeguarding
Met: The setting has an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not met: The setting has not created an open and positive culture of safeguarding. Not all legal requirements are met.
p.1
Achievement Expected standard
Children typically develop age-appropriate skills across the curriculum. For example, babies develop their core strength and physical skills as they are encouraged to practise walking with more control and balance. Their confidence flourishes because they enjoy secure relationships with staff and they regularly try new things. Children grow in independence. For instance, they pour their own drinks and serve their own lunch. They also help each other, such as by setting out plates and glasses for each other, developing an understanding of their role as an important member of their community.
p.2
Achievement Expected standard
Children benefit from carefully planned changes. For instance, they visit older rooms before they move up and move alongside peers, where possible, so that they can make a confident move. This further builds their confidence. Children are also well prepared for the move to school as they learn to increasingly meet their own needs and express their own thoughts and feelings.
p.2
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard
Leaders have ensured that there is now a culture of high expectations for behaviour across the setting. Typically, staff support children to understand these behavioural expectations. For example, they remind them to point their spray bottles down when playing with water so as not to get their peers wet. Leaders' recent work in this area has been effective and staff are generally consistent and clear about what they need to see from children. As a result, children understand what is expected from them. Staff act as effective role models and children benefit from lots of embedded positive praise to reinforce their choices. Children learn to be kind to each other and to share. For instance, they take turns to use tools to scoop sand and water.
p.2
Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard
Staff use visual prompts on lanyards to help younger children to understand upcoming routines, such as nappy changing time. This ensures that all children can develop their knowledge of the routines and expectations. Generally, children are starting to build familiarity with the daily routines in the setting. Leaders work closely with families to help them to understand the importance of regular attendance. Where necessary they adapt sessions to ensure that families can attend well.
p.2
Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard
Leaders have ensured that staff are generally attentive in meeting children's care needs. For instance, they change children's clothes if they become wet. Staff build effective relationships with all children and understand their individual needs. Children typically learn to keep themselves safe. For example, they know to finish their mouthful before they leave the table. Children learn to eat an increasingly healthy diet. Raw vegetables, such as carrots and peppers, are served before the main meal and children happily help themselves to these. This develops children's understanding of healthy eating. Children develop other healthy habits, such as learning to brush their teeth. Staff use songs to reinforce these daily expectations so that children remember and can repeat at home. This builds these positive long-term habits. Children sleep safely and are well supervised while they rest. Staff complete regular checks on all children throughout their sleep. Staff collect comprehensive
p.2
Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard
information about children's weaning journeys and ensure that they provide suitable food.
p.3
Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard
Although children are generally well supervised, at times staff do not communicate well enough with each other to ensure that they are always suitably positioned. This can result in moments where they do not check who has full oversight of all children. This means that some children do not receive consistent support to understand risks. Leaders have identified this and are working to strengthen staff communication.
p.3
Curriculum and teaching Expected standard
Leaders have recently made changes to the curriculum. They have ensured that there is a cohesive curriculum in place that covers all areas of learning and is fully inclusive. This is typically well understood and delivered by staff. Staff focus on developing the children's curiosity and independence. For instance, they encourage children to try new things and to explore what they find. Leaders prioritise children's engagement and understanding of nature. For example, they teach children about their role in our world and the importance of sustainability. Staff typically weave mathematical understanding through the curriculum and daily activities. For instance, they help children to count out the correct number of orange segments to put on a plate.
p.3
Curriculum and teaching Expected standard
Children develop a real love of books. They regularly choose books and pass them to staff to share. Staff read to them with enthusiasm and children mirror this, pointing out the things that they notice with joy. Children's communication skills develop as they relate their experiences to things they see in books, such as talking about trips on a train. However, at times staff do not respond quickly enough to potential barriers to communication. For instance, noise levels in rooms become too high and prevent children from being heard. This means that some children's communication skills develop more slowly.
p.3
Inclusion Expected standard
Leaders ensure that children's needs are typically identified swiftly. They work closely with parents to collect information about children on entry. They are conscious of children's home lives and the impact that this may have on their experiences, such as if having a long journey to the setting. Leaders have a clear understanding of their community and the children within it, and they use this knowledge to inform the provision. This includes clear oversight for children who are known to children's services.
p.3
Inclusion Expected standard
Staff make use of careful adaptations to offer extra support to children with special educational needs and/or disabilities where needed. For example, they use a range of visual images on lanyards to support children with communicating their needs and understanding expectations. Where children require more specialist support, staff work closely with wider services to tailor their approach, such as by assessing and changing the environment to help children's physical needs. Staff do not always ensure that they make effective use of their knowledge of children's home languages when helping them to settle into the setting. Although they identify when children speak additional languages, they do not use key words from those languages to help children understand. This means that these children do not always settle quickly.
p.3
Leadership and governance Expected standard
Leaders have a clear understanding of their local community. Leaders have ensured that they offer flexible sessions to support the shift work of the high proportion of their families who work in the on-site hospital. They adapt their offering to meet the needs of their parents. For example, they offer weekly swimming lessons for older children. Leaders have developed initiatives that further support parents. For instance, a lending library at the nursery entrance is regularly used by parents to settle their children into their day. Leaders work towards ongoing improvement. For instance, their recent work on behaviour management has led to effective change in that area. They are conscious of the need to develop staff communication over deployment and support for all children's communication. Leaders are currently developing a focused system to support children further in preparing for school. Leaders work to mirror the ethos that they embed for children in their own
p.4
Leadership and governance Expected standard
conduct, such as taking part in a national litter pick to demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.
p.4
Leadership and governance Expected standard
Staff typically receive the training and support that they need to develop their practice. Leaders are conscious of their workload and ensure that they liaise regularly with all staff to help ease pressures where possible. Leaders ensure that partnerships with parents are effective. Parents value the flexibility in sessions, but also the wider experiences that their children gain from attending the nursery. For instance, they recognise the development in their children's social skills as they learn to get along with other children. They feel that the staff know their children really well and genuinely care about them.
p.4
Compulsory Childcare Register requirements
This setting has met the requirements of the compulsory part of the Childcare Register.
p.4
Register
When we check if settings meet the Compulsory Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes:
p.4
Voluntary Childcare Register requirements
This setting has met the requirements of the voluntary part of Childcare Register.
p.5
Register
When we check if settings meet the Voluntary Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes:
p.5
What it's like to be a child at this setting
Children arrive happily to this warm and friendly setting. They benefit from positive relationships with staff, who typically know them, and they attend regularly. Children develop a love of learning. They show their excitement in their experiences, such as squealing with joy when staff squirt new paint colours into their trays. Children learn to care for the world around them. For instance, they work together to collect eggs from their pet chickens and to care for them. They are taught about how to understand and protect the environment, such as recycling the paper that they use and turning food waste into compost.
p.5
What it's like to be a child at this setting
Children become increasingly confident explorers as they move through the nursery. During their time in the baby room, they build secure relationships and investigate the space around them from this safe base. As they get older, they use their senses to explore, such as by smelling basil in their potions. Pre-school children excitedly find footprints in their garden area and work with staff to identify where they came from and what they might mean. These experiences develop their confidence and sense of enquiry. Typically, children develop their communication skills as they progress through the setting, although they do sometimes struggle to make themselves heard when rooms become noisy.
p.5
What it's like to be a child at this setting
Children benefit from a wide range of additional activities, such as yoga, music and movement and swimming sessions in the local leisure centre. These sessions help children to develop their physical skills and broaden their experience base. They also further support busy working parents. Children enjoy spending time in the lending library. This is provided to support parents in spending time reading with their children before sessions begin. This helps to develop a cohesive love of books, which runs throughout the provision in the nursery.
p.5
What it's like to be a child at this setting
Children develop a sense of belonging and community. For example, they help to lay the table in pre-school by passing all their peers a cup. They also learn about their role in the
p.5
Address:
Salisbury District Hospital Salisbury SP2 8BJ
p.6
Address:
Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises
p.6
Address:
Registered person: Tops Day Nursery Limited
p.6
Address:
Register(s): EYR, CCR, VCR wider community, such as through their visits to the local care home for initiatives, such as yoga on national fitness day, and through their partnership with a local theatre.
p.6
Next steps
Leaders should support staff to communicate effectively to deploy themselves effectively at all times. Leaders should strengthen staff practice in identifying and reducing barriers to children's communication. Leaders should strengthen staff understanding and use of children's home languages to support children's communication, settling and transitions.
p.6
About this inspection
The inspector spoke with leaders, staff, children and parents during the inspection.
p.6
About this inspection
We carried out this inspection under sections 49 and 50 of the Childcare Act 2006 on the quality and standards of provision that is registered on the Early Years Register. The registered person must ensure that this provision complies with the statutory framework for children's learning, development and care, known as the early years foundation stage. Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 06:30 - 18:30
p.6
Facts and figures used on inspection
This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection.
p.7
Exceptional
Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other settings can learn from it.
p.7
Strong standard
The setting reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.
p.7
Expected standard
The setting is fulfilling the expected standard of education and/or care. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.
p.7
Needs attention
The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.
p.7
Urgent improvement
The setting needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.
p.8
Urgent improvement
services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.
p.8
Urgent improvement
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p.8
Urgent improvement
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Urgent improvement
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Urgent improvement
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