Browns Lane Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children receive a warm welcome from staff when they arrive at the pre-school. Younger children are settled by their parents and staff use this opportunity to speak with them to share important information. For instance, they provide leaflets with advice regarding children's health and well-being. This includes, toilet training, use of dummies and healthy eating. This helps children receive consistent support from parents and the pre-school relating to their self-care. Older children enjoy focused activities. For example, they relish exploring balls of ice. Staff support children's play and explain how to make ice. They encourage children to describe how the ice feels, which promotes their thinking skills well.

Children benefit from staff's high expectations for their behaviour. Children play together well and staff sensitively support children who need help to share toys and resources. They act swiftly and speak calmly to comfort children. This creates an environment that helps children feel comfortable and safe.

Children thoroughly enjoy taking part in group time and enthusiastically join in to sing familiar songs and rhymes. Children giggle and squeal with delight as staff use puppets to keep them focused and engaged. This helps develop children's listening and attention skills, which are in line with their age and stage of development.

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

• Staff implement successful settling-in procedures. For example, they meet with parents and organise short sessions to help children settle when they join the pre-school. Staff get to know the children well and identify their interests to plan activities. As a result, partnerships with parents are well established from the outset and children are keen and eager to learn.
• Staff support children's speech and language development well. For example, they speak clearly and ask open-ended questions. As children are curious and explore resources, such as a treasure chest with sparkly gems and gold coins, staff introduce interesting words. This helps to promote children's expanding vocabulary.
• Children enjoy playing with malleable materials, such as play dough. This helps develop their fine motor skills and hand muscles in preparation for early writing. They draw pictures using a variety of writing tools and proudly show their creations to staff, describing the marks they have made. For example, 'I've made a picture of mummy with glasses on.'
• The special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) identifies children who need extra support effectively. She works with professionals, such as the health visitor and speech and language therapist, to seek advice and guidance. This is helping to ensure that all children make progress.
• The manager uses extra funding to provide rich experiences for all children. For example, children learn about the wider world, such as by visiting a nature reserve and learning about pond life. They have opportunities to visit and join the library, borrowing books. This enhances the curriculum offer.
• Staff intend to promote children's independence in the curriculum. However, they are not fully effective at implementing this in practice. For example, staff do not recognise opportunities to help children practise some hygiene procedures, such as nose wiping, and at times they do not recognise when they can help children to contribute to routines, such as preparing for snack time. This does not fully support children to learn self-care skills and learn how to manage their personal needs effectively.
• Staff frequently provide opportunities for children to practise counting objects in their play. However, they do not fully consider how to help children to apply this knowledge and make links between number and other concepts to embed their understanding. This impacts the progress some children make in mathematics.
• The manager provides a good level of support for staff. For example, she completes a regular cycle of staff supervisions and staff report that they feel well supported within their staff team. The manager identifies appropriate areas for professional development, linking to teaching skills. For example, staff learn more about how to teach letters and sounds to further support children's early literacy skills. This is helping older children to be well prepared for their eventual move on to school.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen routines and teach children the sequence of skills and knowledge that they need to securely establish their independence
• increase staff support to help them understand how to help children make links between number concepts in their play more successfully.