Bagshot Pre-school

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide a warm welcome. Children arrive happy and confidently leave their parents and carers at the door. Children demonstrate that they feel safe and develop a secure sense of belonging as they chat about their mornings with staff. Staff know the children and their families very well. This helps children quickly settle in this friendly pre-school.

Leaders and staff place a high priority on supporting children's communication and language skills. Staff are skilful and introduce new vocabulary, such as 'post office' and 'bank', as children explore the small-world toys. Staff repeat back what children say so that children can hear the spoken words. This helps to develop their clarity of speech. Staff quickly identify any children who need support in this area and provide them with extra support. This helps to reduce any gaps in children's development.

Staff are good role models and have high expectations for children's behaviour. They teach children to play cooperatively together. For instance, staff provide children with a sand timer as a visual aid to help their understanding of turn-taking.

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

• Staff promote children's health well. They monitor children's packed lunches and snacks. Staff provide guidance for parents to help them understand what makes a healthy packed lunch. Children wash their hands before they eat and are encouraged to develop healthy eating habits. Staff teach children that fruit and vegetables are healthy foods, and they grow these in the garden. They have ample opportunities to exercise, both indoors and outdoors, which promotes their good health and well-being.
• Overall, leaders and staff design a well-sequenced curriculum. They have a good understanding of what they want children to learn and why. Staff plan the environment based around children's interests and their next steps in learning. For example, children concentrate as they thread wool through holes on a paper plate, to create a spider web. This helps develop the small muscles in their hands for later writing. However, staff do not always consistently plan purposeful outdoor activities to extend children's learning, particularly for those who learn best outdoors. This means some children have more opportunities than others.
• Staff provide opportunities for children to develop their imaginations. For example, children enjoy the role-play area, such as pretending they are vets. Furthermore, children pretend to fill their ride-on cars up with petrol. These experiences help children make sense of their world.
• Staff support children to develop a love of books. Storytelling is used to extend children's language as they talk about what words mean and expand their vocabulary. Staff are skilled at capturing children's interest in stories. Children listen intently as staff bring characters to life. Staff encourage children to make predictions about what will happen next. This helps prepare children well for the skills they need for school.
• Children behave well. Staff support children to understand different emotions. For instance, they use pictures of 'happy' and 'sad' faces. Staff talk to the children about how they may feel. This broadens children's knowledge of emotions.
• All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress from their starting points. Leaders work closely with other professionals to ensure that children with SEND have personalised plans in place to meet their individual needs.
• Leaders support the professional development of staff well. For instance, staff have recently completed training in how to support children's language development. This helps staff use strategies to promote children's listening and communication skills.
• Parent partnerships are good. Staff share a wealth of information through daily discussions, written assessments and via an electronic platform. Parents say that they appreciate the daily communication that staff have with them about what their children have been learning. This helps them extend their children's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the curriculum intent for outdoor activities to better support those children who prefer to play and learn outside.