Tops Day Nurseries - BournemouthOfsted report card, 18 Sept 2026

Tops Day Nurseries - Bournemouth

Unique reference number (URN): 509660 Address: Royal Bournemouth Hospital, Castle Lane East, Bournemouth, Dorset, BH7 7DW Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises Registered with Ofsted: 03/03/2000 Registers: EYR, CCR, VCR Registered person: Tops Day Nursery Limited

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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.

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How we evaluate safeguarding

When we inspect settings for safeguarding, they can have the following outcomes:

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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.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Leaders are excellent at identifying children's changing needs, including children that experience disadvantage. For instance, leaders and staff ensure that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive support that is highly effective. Leaders consult proactively with external specialists. They routinely implement expert advice extremely well. Children with SEND experience daily, high-quality targeted interactions from skilled staff. Staff use valuable strategies to support children's communication. Children build confidence in speaking. They make simple requests and begin to talk about what they like, such as 'I want balloon' and 'I like yellow.' Staff praise their attempts. Children smile, knowing staff understand them.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Leaders use funding strategically to ensure they meet children's needs. This includes providing children with targeted, one-to-one teaching time with skilful staff. Leaders monitor plans to ensure these are effective. They support staff extremely well to develop their expertise in teaching children with additional needs. They collaborate with staff and parents to identify and coordinate the support children need highly successfully. This ensures support remains consistent and effective between the setting and home.

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Inclusion Strong standard

Leaders take a proactive approach to collaborating with the local authority. They tailor highly effective support for children known to social care. These successful measures ensure that children have the personal plans that enable them to make progress and meet their needs.

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Achievement Expected standard

Children learn to express themselves to staff and their friends. Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive high-quality teaching. This increasingly builds their confidence to access the learning available to them. Babies and young children also gain an assured start in physical and emotional skills. This helps them explore the environment with increasing independence.

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Achievement Expected standard

Overall, children concentrate well. They mostly listen to staff and can sustain their attention during group activities. There are times when children lose focus and need support from staff to get back on track. However, occasionally, children do not receive the support to help them maintain focus. When this happens, children do not fully benefit from the learning that staff have prepared for them.

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Achievement Expected standard

Children are typically well prepared for their next stages of learning. They have the skills and knowledge they need before they move on within the setting. Children benefit from interactions from staff to ensure they are ready.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Overall, children behave well. Leaders know where their practice is effective and recognise where this can improve. They have high expectations for all children. Leaders work with staff to establish and embed routines. These structures help children have a clear understanding of what is appropriate and how to modify their behaviour. Leaders have an established key- person system. Staff effectively support children's emotional development and self- regulation. They use books to support children's understanding of how they feel. This helps children express their emotions and to learn well alongside one another.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Generally, children listen well during group activities. When children lose focus during 'circle time', some staff notice and adapt their approaches. These help reengage children in learning. However, this is occasionally inconsistent. When staff do not notice or intervene, children do not benefit from leaders intended learning for activities. For instance, when young children singing action songs become distracted, some staff do not teach them the skills they need to listen and follow instructions.

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Behaviour, attitudes and establishing routines Expected standard

Leaders and staff do monitor attendance and children's punctuality effectively. They recognise the importance of developing lifelong habits for later success. Leaders work with families to remove barriers to attendance.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard

The provider typically promotes children's welfare and wellbeing well. Staff establish warm, positive interactions with children, including highly respectful relationships with those children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). These give them the secure attachments they need to feel safe. When younger children become unsettled, their key person is quick to respond. They reassure them well which supports children to return to a calm, settled state. Staff generally support children to develop their emotional health. For younger children, they use mirrors to practice different faces to help children recognise emotions. Older children also explore emotions. They are beginning to understanding complex feelings with support from staff using resources and books, such as, 'The Colour Monster.' For children with SEND, staff know children well. There relationships are respectful. This develops children's sense of belonging.

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Children's welfare and wellbeing Expected standard

Staff develop children's understanding of how to keep healthy. All children learn to clean their teeth. Staff teach them these skills well. Children understand the importance of looking after themselves. Routines like these are fostering lifelong healthy habits. Staff supervise children effectively. They support children as they play on equipment. This ensures children are safe and ensures they learn safety skills they need while they exercise their bodies, particularly outdoors. Leaders are effective in collaborating with parents to establish children's individual care needs and ensure staff consistently apply these.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Leaders have developed an ambitious curriculum. They have reviewed what they want children to learn and have recently implemented new approaches. These aim to inspire children to engage in experiences that they enjoy and to support their independence. Leaders encourage staff to reflect on children's learning and adapt learning to meet their needs. Staff generally maintain consistency in teaching by designing activities with clear purpose. These include vocabulary prompts that staff model to children as they play. For instance, children enjoy learning about sea creatures, inspired by recent trips to an aquarium while on holiday. Children love splashing toy creatures in water and talk about different attributes of animals as they talk with staff.

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Curriculum and teaching Expected standard

Leaders promotes the enjoyment of books. Children frequently share stories with staff. Staff introduce mathematical language during teaching times. They find opportunities for children to regularly practise their counting skills in everyday routines. Staff talk to children and observe them carefully to find out what children know and can do. They typically organise children's learning so that other staff can support if their key person is away. While staff monitor assessment information for children that experience disadvantage well, this is occasionally inconsistent for other groups of children. Some staff, particularly those that oversee the quality of practice, do not consistently monitor children's progress effectively. When this happens, staff do not sufficiently adapt the curriculum to ensure some groups of children make similar progress to their peers.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders act in the best interests of children. Overall, the new leadership team has developed an accurate understanding of the setting's strengths and areas for development. Where they make changes, these are effective and lead to improvements. For instance, adaptations to staff deployment are successfully supporting improved attachments between children and staff. Leaders broadly recognised where they need to improve their effective use of assessment information and where teaching should be strengthened to improve consistency.

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Leadership and governance Expected standard

Leaders support staff through effective supervision arrangements. They listen and make modifications to the setting's practices in response. Leaders support staff with training in new initiatives. They ensure that communication and language is a key priority, particularly for children that are disadvantaged. They work effectively and proactively with parents and external agencies on behalf of children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They share information about children's needs and progress, making timely referrals. This ensures children with SEND receive the expertise and targeted support they need to make progress.

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Compulsory Childcare Register requirements

This setting has met the requirements of the compulsory part of the Childcare Register.

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Register

When we check if settings meet the Compulsory Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes:

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Voluntary Childcare Register requirements

This setting has met the requirements of the voluntary part of Childcare Register.

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Register

When we check if settings meet the Voluntary Childcare Register requirements, they can have the following outcomes:

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What it's like to be a child at this setting

Children feel happy and comfortable at this setting. They enjoy learning. Children engage well in a wide range of activities and games. Outdoors, they follow instructions as they play traditional playground games such as, 'What's the time Mr. Wolf?' They laugh as they enjoy chasing one another. Overall, children listen well to staff. Children develop the social skills they need. For those that find this difficult, they practise their communication and language skills to make themselves heard. Staff use communication aids, with pictures and prompts to support children to ask for what they would like. Children with special educational needs

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About this setting

and/or disabilities, in particular, make progress from their starting points. They benefit from targeted, one-to-one support. Children experience interventions which effectively reduce barriers to their learning, helping them make progress.

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About this setting

Overall, children thrive. They demonstrate a cheerful outlook to learning. Children receive respect from staff who value them as individuals. The routines that children experience are well established. For instance, they are accomplished at cleaning their teeth. Children know how to ensure every tooth has been brushed, through effective feedback from staff. They know the importance of this and are beginning to develop lifelong healthy habits. Babies learn in a typically calm environment, where they feel safe and secure to engage with their surroundings. This helps build their physical skills as they confidently explore the environment. Young children wash their hands with increasing independence. Older children confidently serve themselves freshly prepared hot meals at lunchtime. Staff are mostly attentive. They are on hand to support children. When children do become unsettled, staff comfort them. This supports children to feel safe and know that they belong.

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Next steps

Leaders should build staff confidence to use assessment information to monitor children's progress more effectively, so they can adapt their curriculum to consistently meet children's learning needs. Leaders should strengthen staff teaching to consistently support children in their skills to listen and follow instructions.

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About this inspection

The inspector spoke with children, parents, leaders, practitioners and the special educational needs coordinator during the inspection. Since the last inspection, a new manager has been appointed.

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About this inspection

We conducted 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.

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About this inspection

A quality assurance visit by an additional inspector was carried out at this inspection. Unique reference number (URN): 509660

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Address:

Royal Bournemouth Hospital Castle Lane East Bournemouth Dorset BH7 7DW

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Address:

Type: Childcare on non-domestic premises

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Address:

Registered person: Tops Day Nursery Limited

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Address:

Operating hours: Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday,Thursday,Friday : 06:00 - 20:00

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Address:

Local authority: Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole

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Facts and figures used on inspection

This data was available to the inspector at the time of the inspection.

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Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other settings can learn from it.

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Strong standard

The setting reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

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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.

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Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

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Urgent improvement

The setting needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of education and/or care.

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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.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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