Blossom Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

All children, including those who have recently started attending, demonstrate that they feel happy, safe and secure in the warm and welcoming pre-school. Leaders and staff provide an inclusive environment for all children. A highly effective key person system supports children's emotional development and helps to foster early attachments, so that individual children's care needs are met from the outset.

Children demonstrate a positive attitude to learning and behave well. The dedicated leaders and staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and conduct. They act as positive role models and rules and boundaries are in place to help children to understand what is expected of them. Children are kind, caring, interact well with others and play harmoniously with their friends.

All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress from their starting points. Leaders have established effective partnerships with other professionals, such as speech and language therapists. They regularly liaise with them, follow their advice and use this information to provide targeted support for individual children. Staff promote children's communication and language skills effectively. Throughout their interactions they provide a dialogue, repeat words and phrases and introduce new words to extend children's vocabulary. Children talk with confidence and engage in effective two-way conversations with staff, who listen with interest to what they say.

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

• Leaders are aware of the potential impact that the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic has had on children's learning and development. They have identified that some children need support to develop their communication and language skills. Therefore, they have introduced small language groups to help support children's listening, attention and speaking skills.
• Leaders are committed to providing a curriculum to ensure that all children, including those with SEND, develop the knowledge and skills they need for the next stage of learning. Staff regularly assess children's development to find out what they already know and can do. They use this information to identify any emerging gaps and plan for children's next steps.
• Overall, teaching is good. Staff interact well with children and ask them open ended questions to establish what they already know, identify misconceptions and provide explanations. However, occasionally staff do not quickly adapt their teaching in response to children's needs, for example to help all children engage in group sessions or to build further on their learning during activities.
• Children have access to a wide range of books. They listen with interest to stories and talk about the characters they see. For instance, they notice that the characters may be scared or unhappy and suggest ways they could make them feel happy, such as giving them a cuddle. Children demonstrate a good understanding of how other people's actions can impact on others.
• Staff encourage children to complete tasks independently. For example, dressing themselves for outdoor play. During these times, staff praise children for their efforts and persistence, which encourages them to develop a 'can-do' attitude.
• Staff support children to be physically active. Children benefit from fresh air and exercise through daily outdoor play. Indoor activities encourage children to move around in different ways to music. Children confidently walk on tiptoes and gallop around the room. Staff use these opportunities to help them to develop an understanding of the impact that exercise has on their bodies. For instance, by asking children to notice that their hearts are beating faster after physical activity. Children comment that they can feel their hearts going 'boom, boom'.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Leaders and staff consistently share information about children's progress and make suggestions on how parents can support learning at home. For example, parents have access to a lending library to encourage them to share stories with their children. These positive experiences encourage children to develop a love of books.
• Staff work exceptionally well as a team. Leaders show a high regard for staff well-being, ensuring they feel appreciated, which helps them in fulfilling their roles and developing their practice.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to recognise when to adapt the teaching in response to children's interests, needs and abilities.