Daisy Chain Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff collaborate closely to provide a rich and targeted curriculum for children. This, coupled with high-quality teaching, ensures children make substantial and sustained progress. Each child's key person precisely identifies children's learning needs and interests right from when children first attend. Staff are all highly responsive and attentive to children's needs. They flexibly adapt their routines. For example, they provide children with extended uninterrupted periods of play, minimising any disruption for the younger children as they settle in at the beginning of term.

Children relish the freedom to choose from a wide range of stimulating activities and inspiring resources that ignite their curiosity. Staff are very skilled at responding to children's interests and ideas, extending children's engagement and learning to the highest level. For example, children's imaginative play with a small suitcase leads staff to discuss travel and tickets. They extend children's knowledge further as they model writing numbers and letters of the alphabet. Staff capitalise excellently upon spontaneous opportunities as they skilfully extend the focus on travel to an aeroplane in the sky. Staff discuss destinations, speed and flying. They excite the children's imagination further as they bring out more resources, small planes and rockets, and a toy runway to explore these concepts further. Children develop a superb enthusiasm and willingness to learn and very positive attitudes to developing their skills.

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

• The manager sets high standards for the pre-school. She has very strong and effective self-evaluation processes. She liaises closely with her staff team and parents to continually enhance practice at the pre-school. Parents say the 'Daisy ladies' are incredible, so welcoming and create a wonderful learning environment. They say that they put so much time, care and attention into supporting the children.
• Staff build exceptional partnerships with parents. They obtain a wealth of information to help them get to know the children. The beneficial effects of this are seen in the exceptionally sensitive and effective support staff offer new children as they settle in. Staff thoughtfully and skilfully use key words of children's home languages to help their understanding and offer activities that link to children's interests. Children's confidence and well-being soar. Staff use informative newsletters, home-link books and meetings to develop a very strong two-way flow of information with parents, ensuring a consistent approach to the support children receive.
• Staff carefully plan their support for children's communication and literacy. They skilfully link books to activities and children's play. For instance, they beneficially model using recipe books as a source of information as they make pretend soup with children in the garden kitchen. Staff give children time to think and respond when leading discussions and model language clearly for children. They use picture cards to help the communication of children who speak English as an additional language and share these with parents to support children's learning at home.
• Staff build very strong relationships with children. They treat children with respect and are very caring and kind. They foster these qualities in the children. Children behave very well. Staff sensitively support the younger newer ones to share toys and resources and help them to enjoy the company of the other children.
• Staff place great importance on developing children's confidence in doing things for themselves. Children help tidy items away and pour their own drinks. Staff teach children about sustainability. Children recycle their waste after lunch, sorting the items into the correct bins. Children develop a strong sense of responsibility, an understanding of the world and gain important life skills.
• Children spend lots of time outside in the wonderfully resourced pre-school garden. Staff continually enhance this and have more recently added a small pond in a sectioned off area. Children watch frogs in the pond with fascination. Staff skilfully build on this, discussing the frogs and their unique habitat and finding toy ones for children to play with. Children become absorbed in their exploration, transporting the toy frogs around and making them different homes.
• The experienced and dedicated manager leads staff practice excellently, with strong processes for the recruitment, supervision and ongoing support of staff. She sources training and has beneficial links with other providers to gain high-quality practice ideas, linking these to the changing needs of the children that attend.