Busy Bees Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children separate from their parents with ease as they happily enter this warm and welcoming pre-school. They greet staff with a big smile as they run over to their friends. Children display a strong sense of belonging and show that they feel safe and secure. For example, children sit on the lap of staff and cuddle into them, chatting away excitedly about their home life. Staff listen well, showing genuine warmth and kindness.

Staff implement a fun and stimulating curriculum, which focuses on developing children's independence and confidence. Staff carefully consider children's next steps in learning. They use the information they identify to plan targeted experiences to help close gaps in learning.

Staff ask children what activities they would like to carry out. Children become excited as they say they want to make 'sausage pizzas' out of modelling dough. They enjoy working together to make sausages and use mathematical language, such as 'longer than' and 'shorter than', to compare sizes. Staff encourage children to think about what other toppings they would like on the pizza. They ask questions, such as what to use to clean up the ingredients off the table. Through these self-directed tasks, children build confidence in their abilities and demonstrate a sense of pride in their accomplishments.

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

• There is a strong safeguarding culture in the pre-school. Leaders carry out detailed risk assessments and know how to record and report any concerns. Thorough recruitment procedures are in place to check the suitability of staff working with children. That said, those responsible for the pre-school have not notified Ofsted about changes to committee members within the required time frame. Nonetheless, this has minimal impact on children because committee members, who have not yet had their suitability verified, do not have any unsupervised contact with children.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and those in receipt of additional funding are well supported. Leaders spend additional funding thoughtfully to provide the extra sessions, meals and resources that children require. Staff work closely with outside agencies to ensure that children have appropriate support in place. All children make good progress from their starting points.
• Staff support children to understand their own feelings and emotions. They encourage children to indicate how they are feeling on a coloured mood board. For example, children put their name on the colour that represents their mood, such as blue to represent that they are tired. This helps children to put a name to their emotions.
• Children have many opportunities to be active in the fresh air and develop their physical skills. Younger children enjoy throwing a flying disc to staff, helping to develop their hand-eye coordination. Pre-school children are passionate about their forest school sessions. Staff have robust procedures to teach children road safety as they walk to the forest school site. For instance, they all hold onto a rope and look each way before crossing the road. Children run and explore the natural environment and pay particular attention to freshly formed mole hills. They compare the sizes of them and notice that as they walk on them, the ground sinks beneath them. Children explore confidently and understand to take care on the uneven surfaces and riskier terrain.
• Staff place high priority on developing children's communication and language skills. They introduce new words to children, such as 'trowel', and carefully model the correct pronunciation of words. Children laugh with delight as they join in with interesting stories. They are confident communicators and use a wide range of vocabulary while chatting happily to friends.
• Children's behaviour is generally good. Older children sit quietly and listen during group times, and all children behave well at lunchtime. However, at times, staff are not consistent when managing behaviour and do not always help children to learn about the consequences of their actions. This means that, on occasion, younger children struggle to understand behaviour expectations, and some unwanted behaviour occurs.
• Leaders have developed highly engaging strategies to involve parents and carers. For example, they invite them to their annual 'Spring bash'. Staff share information and ideas that enable parents to extend their child's learning at home. Relationships between parents and staff are trusting and respectful. Parents speak highly about the pre-school. They comment that staff are lovely and communicate well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to consistently help children to understand the expectations for their behaviour and the impact of their behaviour on others.