Bevan Lodge Community Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and settle quickly in this warm and friendly pre-school. They develop secure relationships with the kind and caring staff. Children independently access a wide range of toys and resources, indoors and outdoors. They understand and follow clear routines to help them learn how to manage their own needs. For example, children find their coats prior to going outside and confidently follow handwashing routines before mealtimes. Children are well behaved and understand the need to use timers to share or wait their turn. Staff offer good praise to children, such as when helping to tidy away toys and resources.

Children take trips in their local community and staff plan regular visits linked to children's interests. They become immersed in their play and are motivated and inquisitive learners. For example, children use their imaginative skills and show high levels of engagement during an outdoor play dough activity. They create models and use language such as 'smooth, silky' and 'squashy' as they describe the textures of the play dough.

Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those in receipt of early years funded education develop a positive attitude towards learning, while they learn skills for life.

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

• The manager has good relationships with the other settings children attend. She communicates regularly with local schools and other professionals to support children's transitions. The manager has a close relationship with the committee. This enables her to provide resources that meet the needs of all children and helps them make good progress in their learning.
• Staff provide a vast range of opportunities to enhance children's communication and language skills. Children enthusiastically join in with stories, songs and rhymes and have lots of conversations with adults and other children. They listen attentively to stories, remember phrases and repeat words in songs.
• Parents are highly complimentary about the staff. They praise the pre-school and the positive impact it has had on their children's development. Parents appreciate the feedback they receive from staff about the day-to-day activities at the pre-school. They comment on how happy their children are to attend the setting and value the care that they receive.
• Children are developing an understanding of healthy lifestyles. They enjoy plenty of opportunities for outdoor play. Children exercise their large muscles as they confidently learn to climb, to run and to balance in the outdoor area. Staff deliver musical movement sessions where children move their bodies in time to the music and reach up high, squat down low, jump and dance. This helps to promote children's physical skills and mental well-being.
• Staff have high expectations of children and set clear boundaries for their behaviour. They act as good role models and have high expectations for children's behaviour. Children are kind and caring to staff and each other and display high levels of empathy for others. They help comfort their friends if they are upset and demonstrate positive behaviours, such as sharing and taking turns.
• Children have access to a broad curriculum, which considers children's individual needs. Staff assess children's development and gather information from parents about their learning at home. However, at times, staff do not make the best use of all the information to extend children's learning even further.
• The manager is reflective and she continually monitors and evaluates the effectiveness of the pre-school. She provides some feedback for staff to help them to improve their practice. However, feedback is not always specific enough to help individual staff improve their skills and knowledge further. Consequently, there are some variations in the quality of education across the pre-school. For instance, not all staff are clear on what skills and knowledge they want children to gain through the activities the children choose. This means, at times, some children are not fully challenged.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to use all the information that they know about children to precisely identify next steps and extend their learning even further
• strengthen the arrangements for the supervision of staff and monitoring of teaching to identify training and professional development opportunities that help raise the quality of teaching consistently to the highest level.