Cadeby Lane Stepping Stones

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children demonstrate that they feel happy, secure and confident at this warm and welcoming pre-school. Staff provide a wide range of exciting activities to motivate children to learn. They involve children in planning and making choices. For example, children perform using musical instruments on a small stage in the playground. They select which instruments to play and the music they would like to hear. Their creative ideas are valued and celebrated. Children delight in performing for an audience of their friends and staff. Children of all ages particularly enjoy learning outdoors across all areas of learning.

The bonds between staff and children are strong. Young children seek out staff for reassurance and spontaneously hug them joyfully. Staff are positive role models. They give gentle reminders to children about their expectations, when needed. For instance, when young children mix together soil and food ingredients to create a 'recipe', staff encourage them to share the resources between them. Children demonstrate good manners and are consistently kind and friendly towards each other. Staff provide them with a wealth of praise and encouragement for their efforts and behaviour, which helps children to be motivated to have a go at activities. Independence and self-care are priorities. Older children are eager to help with everyday tasks, such as washing up after eating a snack. They are keen to tidy away resources at the end of sessions. Children gain the skills and independence they need for future learning.

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

• Leaders are passionate about providing all children and families with excellent support and care to help them thrive. They provide staff with tailored coaching and mentoring. Staff work well together and reflect on ways to make further improvements. For example, the targeted professional development programme benefits all staff as new ideas are shared and implemented. One example of this is when staff reviewed and strengthened their teaching of early mathematics.
• Staff intervene swiftly to identify any gaps in children's learning. They use their baseline assessments, including information from parents, to secure additional help. The pre-school works closely and proactively with other professionals. All children make good progress, including children with special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Staff focus on getting to know children well and responding to their interests. They provide ongoing commentary for their play and introduce new vocabulary, such as 'microscopic' and 'hydrated'. However, on occasion, staff do not support and extend children's creativity and help them build further on what they already know and can do. This means that sometimes, children are not challenged as much as they are at other times.
• Parents say that the pre-school is like a 'home from home' and that children are always eager to attend. They value updates from staff about children's progress and next steps in learning through regular verbal and written reports, newsletters and meetings. Information shared by staff about current topics and children's experiences helps parents to continue learning at home.
• Children have many opportunities to explore the natural environment. They show curiosity and concentration as they search for bugs in woodland and collect materials from the ground to create pictures. Staff encourage children to listen to birdsong and the wind blowing through the leaves and branches of trees. This inspires awe and wonder for children.
• Staff teach children to care for seedlings as the seedlings grow into plants. They help children investigate where food comes from and about making healthy food choices. One example of this is when children help to harvest lettuces that they have grown from seeds and use these when they make sandwiches. Children taste a variety of fruits at snack time and say how these are good for them. They learn that they need to wash their hands before eating to remove any germs.
• Children's physical development is very well supported by staff. Children practise balancing on beams that staff gradually raise to increase the challenge. They delight in climbing on large equipment and crawling through tunnels. Young children dance vigorously to music, strengthening their muscles. Children copy staff to move their bodies in different ways to make yoga poses. Older children learn traditional games from staff, such as hop scotch, where they practise throwing, jumping and hopping.
• Staff help children develop a love of books. They animatedly read stories and use props, such as a model caterpillar and food items to involve children in the story telling. Children of all ages join in with their favourite songs enthusiastically. They enjoy games with rhyming words. This fosters their good early literacy skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's interactions with children to even more sharply support them to be challenged and build on what they already know and can do.