Berinsfield Early Years Pre-school

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children happily wave goodbye to their parents and enter the pre-school with a smile. They excitedly join in with the welcome group time and smile with pride as they answer to their name. Staff expertly support the different learning needs of the children. For example, they ask the older children to help to count how many are in the group. This enhances the learning opportunities for children who may need further challenge.

Staff have high expectations of children's behaviour. They support children to understand these by using 'golden rules'. This helps children to understand behaviour expectations, such as listen to others and take turns. Consequently, the atmosphere is calm and children behave well.

Children are extremely independent and enjoy following the routines. Staff regularly help children to understand what is happening next. For instance, children excitedly check how many minutes are left on a sand timer as they eagerly help staff to tidy the toys. They are learning a sense of responsibility and know how to accomplish tasks for themselves.

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

• Staff offer lots of opportunities to support children's communication and language development. For example, they use a variety of focused learning initiatives that promote children to listen and repeat simple words. This particularly helps those children who may need further support in their speech and helps them to gain the skills they need for future learning.
• Staff expertly support children to learn the language of feelings. For instance, staff and children regularly use pictures of faces that depict emotions. Children confidently point to how they are feeling, such as 'sad' or 'angry'. This helps them to recognise their feelings and share them with others. Children have good emotional literacy skills.
• Staff plan exciting and engaging experiences for children. As a result, children have endearing positive attitudes to play and learning. For instance, they engage for long periods of time pretending to act out a familiar story in the garden. They have binoculars and enjoy dressing as the characters, such as little pigs. Children recall and remember the familiar phrases from previous learning. As a result, children have a love of stories and good early literacy skills.
• Leaders meet with staff regularly to discuss the children's development and use this to plan for children's next steps in learning. This helps to ensure the activities on offer support the different needs of all children. However, current key-person systems do not fully promote the continuity of care for all children. This means that, at times, some children do not receive consistent high-quality interactions that support their learning outcomes.
• Staff and leaders build close bonds with parents and families. Parents appreciate the regular updates about their children's learning and development. Staff regularly share activities for parents to try at home. This helps to support children's home learning. For example, they promote parents to follow the 'Stick Man' topic and help their children by collecting sticks at the weekend. However, at times, current strategies for working with parents to promote healthy food choices in lunch boxes are not effective. As a result, some children do not get the balanced diet they need or learn about healthy choices.
• Leaders and staff plan an ambitious curriculum for all children. Those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) make good progress. Staff support their learning extremely well and ensure their individual needs are consistently met. They tailor their teaching to ensure children with SEND receive focused support for their next steps in learning. For instance, staff offer those children with SEND regular opportunities to work in a quiet space and focus on sensory play. This helps children to reach their next steps in development.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review current key-person systems to ensure all children consistently receive support they need to make progress in their next steps of development
• develop more opportunities to support parent partnerships to support children's healthy lifestyles, particularly around healthy food choices.