Carver Road Playgroup

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The playgroup staff are welcoming and friendly. Children leave their parents at the door and settle quickly. They move with familiarity around the playgroup, choosing what they want to play with. Children are happy and engage confidently with staff, who know them well. They have formed strong attachments with their key person. This helps children to feel safe and secure. Children's behaviour is good. Staff act as good role models and recognise children's achievements.

Staff create opportunities for speech and language development. They speak to children face to face to ensure good eye contact. Children have ample time to respond to questions to allow time for thinking. Children benefit from lots of opportunities to engage in physical activities, both indoors and during outdoor play. They move with good coordination and control as they excitedly join in movement sessions, jumping, clapping and counting with enthusiasm. Children use their imaginations and work well together using the toy cement mixer and large foam blocks to build a wall. They play cooperatively and demonstrate positive behaviours, such as being kind, sharing and taking turns. All children are well supported by staff who get down to their level and provide guidance as needed.

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

• The staff work well as a team. They are highly motivated to offer the best possible experiences to children. Staff consider children's interests and offer a broad range of activities that cover, all areas of learning.
• Staff have a good knowledge of children's starting points and next steps in learning. They continually observe and assess children's development and plan an effective curriculum, overall. However, staff do not consistently support the children's differing abilities in their spontaneous play and some children quickly lose interest.
• Staff swiftly identify children who are working below expectations. This leads to timely support programmes and partnership working with parents and professionals. Staff use additional funding to help children make good progress. For example, they provide extra staff hours and targeted resources to help children develop their communication and social skills before starting school.
• Children enjoy joining in with the stories that staff read them. Staff emphasise relevant language. This helps children to broaden their vocabulary. Staff pause as they read to check children's understanding through skilful questioning. Children confidently join in with familiar words and phrases. Staff have created an inviting role play area, containing dressing-up clothes, puppets and props, based on the children's current storybook. This motivates children to read books and enhances their love of reading. Opportunities to develop early writing skills are interwoven into many of the playgroup activities.
• Children develop an understanding of the world they live in as they experiment with large magnets to see which items attract or repel. They enthusiastically water their cress seeds and wait for these to grow. Children who are confident and eager to engage with staff enjoy high-quality interactions. Most children chat confidently, using their emerging language to share their views. However, sometimes quieter children are not included as well in discussions or activities.
• Staff support children's move to school effectively. They work well with the local school to provide consistency for children's learning. Children enjoy opportunities to develop their mathematical skills. Staff provide mathematical resources for children to use, such as number puzzles and chalk boards to draw shapes. This supports children to develop their number and shape recognition skills in preparation for school.
• In order to minimise the continuing risk of transmitting COVID-19, parents are not routinely entering the building. Staff continue to exchange information verbally, electronically and through progress summaries. They share information about how parents can support children's learning at home. Parents are pleased with the progress their children have made at the playgroup and they are happy with the care their children receive.
• Overall, improvement plans, staff qualifications and professional development have a positive impact. For example, following speech and language training, staff are implementing support programmes to develop children's language skills further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• help staff to recognise how to use spontaneous opportunities to extend and challenge children's learning further
• engage quieter children more in discussions and activities so that they benefit from the same good-quality interactions as the more confident children.