Berkeley Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff show passion for celebrating each individual child in this welcoming, nurturing environment. They plan personalised targets and know children and their families well. This allows children to feel emotionally secure and valued within this community-based pre-school. Staff ensure that children's individual spoken languages and cultures are celebrated alongside their learning of the English language.

The careful consideration to the layout of the pre-school ensures that children have free-flow access to a large outdoor environment with a range of activities, as well as a carefully resourced indoor space. The specialised group rooms provide opportunities for children to share stories and engage in sensory play.

Children behave well. They respond to a small bell to signify 'tidy-up time'. They stop to help staff tidy away resources. Staff make their expectations clear, for example, by asking children to carry out specific tasks, such as collecting up the hoops and beanbags and taking them to the outdoor shed. Children demonstrate a positive attitude to staff's requests and fully understand their role in tidying away when they have finished playing with resources.

Children understand the importance of oral hygiene and a healthy diet. They have opportunities to practise brushing their teeth correctly. They taste a range of healthy fruits at snack time and use books and posters to learn about foods that make up a balanced diet. This supports children to learn and develop healthy lifestyles.

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

• There are a range of activities for children to choose from to develop their small-muscle skills in their hands. Children enjoy filling pipettes and squeezing sponges in the water tray, copying letters and numbers in sand and stirring, and mixing flour, salt and oil to make play dough. Strengthening these muscles supports children with their next steps in writing.
• Staff carefully plan to ensure that children have opportunities to develop their understanding of numbers and shapes. For example, children successfully recognise a range of numbers and their names as they throw beanbags at a number wall. Children recall the names of a range of two-dimensional shapes as they draw around them.
• Staff use every opportunity to reinforce language and extend and model vocabulary to children. For example, they support children in their role play when 'selling' ice cream and fruits in their outside shop. They carefully listen and encourage children to share their ideas. They support children by modelling how to extend their sentences, by adding words such as' yummy' and 'juicy' to further describe the foods that children have requested to buy. Children enjoy repeating the new vocabulary back to staff, demonstrating their learning of new words.
• Staff plan activities for children to engage in during regular circle time sessions. They use songs and actions to welcome children to join the group. However, staff are not always consistent in modelling their high expectations for children's behaviour during these times. Children are not always consistently reminded of the expectations for sitting, looking and listening to each other. This results in some children becoming distracted and not fully benefitting from the learning intention of the session.
• Children enjoy the vast array of activities to support their physical development. For example, they run up and over the large grass hill, negotiate space as they ride scooters, complete assault courses involving balancing, crawling through tunnels, and throwing beanbags in a bucket. Staff talk to children about the importance of fresh air and exercise in staying fit and healthy.
• The pre-school works in partnership with parents. Parents know their children's targets and feel supported with how to help at home. In particular, supporting their children's communication and language development. They receive regular updates about their children's learning through newsletters and daily communication. They report on the noticeable progress that their children have made since starting pre-school.
• The experienced leadership team has a clear vision on how they would like to develop the provision further. They constantly reflect on their practice and review and discuss the curriculum regularly to ensure that it is sufficiently ambitious and challenging for children. Staff feel valued and are supported through regular supervision meetings and training opportunities.
• Effective use of working partnerships with other professionals and external agencies ensures that all children make expected progress, including children with English as an additional language (EAL) and children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). The pre-school makes effective use of any additional funding to ensure that all children have opportunities and experiences that they may not have access to outside of the pre-school.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• further support staff in developing consistent strategies to enable children to understand behaviour expectations during group-time sessions to ensure they fully access the intended learning.