Brereton Playgroup and Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Friendly staff greet children warmly as they arrive at this lively and welcoming pre-school. Children arrive happy and are keen to get into the setting to play. The staff help them to settle quickly into their chosen activity. This shows the secure and positive relationships between children and their key person.

Leaders provide a curriculum that is ambitious and inclusive for all children, ensuring that they are well prepared for their next stages of learning. Children have lots of fun choosing from the different activities and resources on offer. Staff support children to play together and behave well. For example, children play cooperatively with their friends, carefully drawing a treasure map and making a pretend telescope out of rolled up paper together. They work their way round the room looking for clues, proudly explaining, 'She's doing the looking and I'm using the map.' This demonstrates their social skills, confidence and how their imaginations are developing well.

Staff make sure that children get plenty of fresh air and exercise in the spacious outside areas. They run round a track, chasing and catching each other and climb over and under climbing frames and other large equipment. Children work together, painting a rainbow on a huge board, stretching up high to paint at the top of the board. This supports the development of their physical skills well.

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

• Overall, the curriculum is well planned. Leaders and staff assess the children's starting points when they first arrive at the pre-school. They meet regularly to discuss and plan for children's next steps. Leaders and staff take account of children's interests, which helps children engage positively with the activities on offer. However, at times, staff are not as clear as possible about the learning intentions of some activities. This means that, occasionally, children are not gaining the most new knowledge and skills as possible.
• Children's communication and language skills are supported effectively. Staff have lots of interesting conversations with children. They talk to them about what they are doing and what they can see and hear, taking care to talk clearly and give the children plenty of time to reply. Outside, staff skilfully encourage children to develop an imaginative game about 'The Gingerbread Man', repeating familiar phrases from the story. Children's speaking, listening and early reading skills are developing well.
• The educational programmes for physical development are well planned. Staff plan lots of ways for children to move and handle different items. Children concentrate hard as they select a toy animal to paint. They hold the toy animal carefully and paint it all over, turning it in their hand to check that it is completely covered. They then enjoy choosing to wash the toy animal to make it clean again in a tub of soapy water. Children are taught by staff to use scissors correctly when cutting out pictures of animals. This develops the children's hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills effectively.
• Mostly, children behave very well. Staff teach children to be friendly, confident and consistently polite and kind to each other. For example, when children splash others with water by mistake, they say sorry without being reminded. Children enjoy taking on responsible roles and take great pride in wearing different special aprons to help with the serving of the toast at snack time or to feed the guinea pigs. However, sometimes children struggle to maintain high levels of concentration and become distracted from their learning, particularly when they are in larger groups.
• Leaders and staff are passionate about doing their absolute best for all children. There is thoughtful and sensitive support in place, particularly for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Each child's key person is enthusiastic and knowledgeable when they talk about the additional training that they have undertaken to enable them to give children the most positive support. The manager and her staff team work closely with outside services, parents and carers. This helps them to identify any additional needs quickly and support children who are disadvantaged well.
• Staff work closely with parents to keep them updated with children's progress. They share detailed information about children's development and achievements. This helps to provide continuity in supporting children's care and learning. Parents appreciate this positive partnership working. They comment that they are 'really impressed' with the support that their children receive.
• Staff speak highly of the pre-school leaders and say that they are proud to work at the setting. They speak very positively about the teamwork and enjoyment that they get from their work with the children. They report that they are very well supported by leaders to develop their professional skills and that leaders genuinely care about their well-being. This helps to create a relaxed and happy atmosphere for children to play and learn.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to consistently plan activities that have clear intentions for children's learning
• improve staff knowledge of how to support children to remain highly engaged and be less easily distracted, particularly in group activities.