Chaldon Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children develop strong, nurturing relationships with staff at this warm and welcoming nursery. Children and their families are greeted at the door due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Children take this change in their stride and arrive with confidence each day. Staff ensure children feel safe and secure from the moment they settle in and children benefit from a strong key-person system. This helps them to become confident learners. Children's behaviour and attitudes are good. Staff have high expectations of what children can achieve and children persist with independent tasks. For example, they learn strategies to put on their own coats and shoes and do this independently to get ready for their outdoor activities.

Children show a good level of engagement in indoor and outdoor activities. Staff plan a curriculum which places children at the centre of their learning. Children enjoy searching for bugs under wooden stumps, for example, in their forest-school activities, and mixing up mud and sand in the mud kitchen. These experiences enhance children's learning about the natural world and provide opportunities for extending vocabulary. This helps children to be well prepared for their future learning.

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

• Leaders establish strong parent partnerships within the setting. These help children to settle quickly. Parents praise staff for their loving and caring nature. Staff give parents daily feedback and communicate well about what their children are doing and need to work on next. The manager establishes excellent links with external professionals and other childcare settings.
• The manager and staff have a good knowledge of how children learn. They assess children's progress regularly, identify any gaps in learning and plan what they want the children to learn next. The curriculum reflects this and takes account of children's current interests. As a result, children make good progress.
• Children enjoy a range of healthy choices at snack time. However, staff do not recognise opportunities where they can further promote children's independence skills within this routine.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are well supported. Staff are quick to identify children who may need support and seek advice from the nursery's special educational needs and/or disabilities coordinator (SENDCo). Managers work alongside other agencies, such as the local authority and social workers, to help to acquire any support that children need. Children with SEND achieve good outcomes.
• Staff ensure the outdoor curriculum has a wide range of opportunities for children to have the freedom to explore the natural world. However, they do not fully recognise how they can replicate these opportunities indoors to help children to follow and extend their own interests in their play.
• There is a strong team spirit at the pre-school. Staff share that they feel appreciated, supported, and valued in their roles. They feel happy to come to work every day. The manager provides individual supervision meetings for staff to discuss their work and the children they care for. Staff undertake regular training initiatives and implement what they learn so that the children benefit.
• The senior leadership team have high expectations of the quality of provision. When concerns are raised, swift action is taken. The leadership team reviews the circumstances and where necessary, strengthens procedures, helping to minimise risk.
• The gentle encouragement and respect for the children shown by staff is reflected through children's own behaviour and attitudes towards others. For example, when children begin to run in the classroom a staff member asks them if they would like to run outside. This demonstrates a collaborative approach to supporting children develop positive behaviour and attitudes.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen opportunities within routine times, such as snack time, to further develop children's independence skills
• develop a more consistent approach to implementing the curriculum and help children to have access to high quality opportunities to explore the natural world indoors and outdoors.