Borden Village Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children come into the setting confidently and happily. They greet their friends, including the staff, enthusiastically. Children feel safe and secure. They understand and follow established routines. For example, at the end of the morning, they help to tidy the activities away before lunch. Those children who are going home collect their belongings without reminders. Children understand how to keep themselves safe. They are reminded to use both hands to move a plank of wood and to wear hats outside in the sunshine. Children have positive attitudes to their learning. They persevere and concentrate, sharing and taking turns. For instance, children devise a game where they take turns to fill each other's jugs with water, run and pour it out. Children behave well. Staff use books to support children in understanding their feelings, such as when they have been upset.

The curriculum has been adapted to ensure that it meets the needs of the children in the setting. Children are able to build on their learning sequentially. For example, activities support the development of simple mark making into early writing. Children enjoy listening to stories as a group. They join in with repeated refrains and make comments about the characters.

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

• Parents are very pleased with the level of communication they have with leaders and with their child's key person. They are informed about their child's progress and next steps in learning. Parents receive guidance about how they can support their child's learning at home. When children are registered at the setting, there is a thorough process of information gathering. This helps to ensure that staff are fully aware of children's individual learning needs from the start and can plan accordingly.
• Staff plan engaging activities using children's interests and experiences. This helps them to make good progress. However, at times, there is a lack of challenge because activities are not sufficiently focused on individual children's next steps in learning.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive effective support. The special educational needs coordinator ensures that children receive the help they need from external professionals. This helps them to make good progress. Additional funding is used wisely to promote children's learning by providing support for speech and language, which were negatively impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Staff support children's interest in the natural world. They create a wormery, and children enjoy watching the life cycle of the butterfly. Children observe the caterpillars hatching and growing before metamorphising into butterflies. They are delighted when they see butterflies in the garden, exclaiming that they have come back to see them. Children carry their interest in nature into independent play. They point to a large bird of prey and identify it as an eagle.
• Leaders are reflective. They observe staff and identify how they can make improvements to their practice. Staff benefit from regular meetings with leaders to discuss training and well-being needs. Leaders have identified improvements they want to make to the setting to enhance children's progress. For example, they have identified a training programme to help them meet the needs of children whose language development has been hindered by COVID-19.
• There are strong links between the setting and other providers that children may attend. For example, they work together to ensure consistent arrangements for toilet training. Information is shared to ensure consistency in education and care.
• The local community is encouraged to be involved in the setting. For instance, the farmer brings the tractor for children to explore, and the vicar comes to read stories. Those from other parts of the world share their cultural experiences with the children. This helps them to understand the wider world beyond their own experience.
• Staff promote children's mathematical understanding effectively. Children grow beans and compare the sizes, using the language of comparison. Children pour water on specific numbers on the hopscotch game, recognising numbers out of sequence. Others match numerals to the number of dots, challenging themselves to rearrange the numbers from largest to smallest. n

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus planning more sharply on ensuring that activities precisely match individual children's next steps in learning.