Busy Hands Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children of all ages are happy and settle quickly. They arrive with keen enthusiasm to take part in the wide range of activities and learning experiences offered. Children interact confidently with visitors. This shows their secure emotional attachments. After they spend a long time working on their junk modelling project, they proudly share their artistic creations with visitors. Children thoroughly enjoy using planting resources, such as pots, compost, pretend flowers, petals, and gardening tools. They create their own flowers in pots and hand them out to staff.

Outside, children use their creative and imaginative skills. For example, they pour water down a drainpipe to create a watery slope to run their toy cars down. Staff use questions, such as 'Do your cars go faster with or without the water?' to help children think about their ideas. Children fetch more water; with their friends they discuss how fast and how far the cars are travelling.

Children listen and respond well to staff's instructions. They follow daily routines and are supported to understand impending changes. For example, children stand still when staff dim the lights to give them notice that the routine is going to change shortly. This supports children to know what is going to happen next. Children behave very well. They take pride in helping to carry out small tasks, such as cleaning the tables in preparation for snack.

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

• Staff well-being is highly valued by the provider. She ensures that all staff feel well supported. The provider has an open-door policy, which means staff feel able to raise any concerns they may have. Staff comment they appreciate the small, close-knit team they have and that they feel valued.
• Staff keep up to date with mandatory training such as first aid and safeguarding. However, there is scope to further extend staff professional development to expand their knowledge about the ways in which children learn and develop their practice even further.
• Staff provide children with a curriculum that prepares them with skills for the future. For instance, the current focus is to develop children's understanding of the world. Staff teach children about how to care for the planet. Children learn about recycling. At lunch, they confidently identify which bin they need to put their recycling in.
• Staff support children to learn good social skills. They encourage children to recall the pre-school rules. Staff ask the children to give examples of why they need to follow the rules such as, 'Why do we need to use our kind hands?' to which children respond, 'To share the toys'.
• Staff read books to children who thoroughly enjoy listening to stories.
• Furthermore, staff introduce books as a source of information. For example, they teach children about the Queen and the Queen's Platinum Jubilee, using books as a point of reference. This contributes to children's literacy skills.
• The provider and staff have built good relationships with parents, overall. Parents comment that they appreciate the hard work the staff do to support their children. However, staff do not yet share children's next steps with parents; they do not support parents to extend their children's learning at home.
• Staff use additional funding for eligible children to help meet their individual needs. An example of this is they buy resources to create bags that relate to specific areas of learning, such as children's language development. Children confidently choose a toy duck and ducklings from the bag. The staff then encourage and support the children to sing a popular nursery rhyme about a duck.
• Staff provide opportunities for children to learn about the diversity of life in modern Britain. Children take part in regular Spanish lessons taught by an external teacher. They recall words they have learned in previous weeks and quickly pick up and sing Spanish songs. Adults praise children as they use signs alongside the Spanish word. This contributes to children's understanding that some people use different languages.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• further extend opportunities for staff to enhance their professional development to help them understand how children learn
• strengthen communication with parents so they can contribute to their children's learning.