Darul Madinah London

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children demonstrate that they are happy and feel safe at this pre-school. Staff are caring and provide a welcoming environment, helping children to settle quickly and feel secure. Children who are new to the setting receive extra support and become distracted easily, helping to build attachment with staff from the beginning. Staff thoughtfully plan an array of experiences, focusing on their interests and abilities. Children become engaged in their play, such as filtering through sand to find different objects and creating their own sand creations. Staff are attentive and role models with the children, engaging in play with them to encourage their learning.

Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour and support them to understand positive behaviours. For example, encouraging children to share or have good manners. Children are confident and express their needs to the staff. Staff are responsive and listen to them. Such as children who may become upset are reassured quickly. Staff recognise children's interests, using this as a distraction. Staff praise children and understand the importance of children feeling understood. As a result, children seek out staff to share experiences with them, such as asking them to join in an activity. This supports children's self-confidence and sense of belonging.

The pre-school is at the heart of an Islamic community. Leaders and staff are passionate about ensuring the setting is inclusive and all children are respected and included. Children and their families feel valued and have a strong sense of belonging. For example, staff understanding what makes them unique, such as different cultures.

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

• Leaders, alongside their staff, are dedicated to providing the best possible outcomes for children. Together, they have worked hard to address previous weaknesses identified at their last inspection. Leaders have placed emphasis on safeguarding children, alongside improving the quality of teaching. Leaders have ensured staff receive regular and effective supervision, identifying areas of improvement through observations and external support. Targeted training influences staff practice, in turn, positively impacting the experience for children.
• Staff implement a well-planned curriculum. Offering children meaningful play across all learning areas, focusing on their interests and next steps in learning. This supports children in making good progress. For example, staff take time to assess children during the settling back from the summer holidays period, identifying gaps while building connections with them.
• Generally, children's language and communication skills are promoted well through interactions. However, on occasion, staff do not consistently allow children time to process questions and reply. Additionally, they do not use a range of strategies to help children who speak English as an additional language. This does not effectively increase their vocabulary and communication skills.
• Staff promote healthy lifestyles and choices. For instance, they ensure children have regular challenging physical exercise. Staff promote care routines, such as wiping their own nose or washing their hands. During snack time, staff show children images of healthy food and discuss the benefits of the food they are currently eating with them.
• Staff have good relationships with agencies that offer support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They seek advice and integrate effective strategies to support children with SEND, such as building independence and social skills during meal times.
• Staff engage in play alongside children and initiate meaningful conversations. However, children and staff are sometimes unclear about what is happening next. This is because staff have not effectively used the systems put in place by leaders. Consequently, children who find transitions of daily routines difficult become unsettled and are not ready to engage in the next part of the routine.
• Parents are actively involved in children's learning. They speak highly about how caring the staff are. Staff provide regular feedback through various means of communication, such as an online app, verbal discussions, emails, and newsletters. This helps parents to understand what is happening at the setting and how to support learning at home.
• Staff design the curriculum to support children to become independent. Throughout the year, they adapt routines to develop children's independence further, such as encouraging children to self-register when they arrive. For example, they progressively change how children find their own name and self-register. Children, in turn, become more aware of their surroundings and confident in their independence skills. For instance, children help themselves to resources to make their own malleable material, experimenting in mixing the different ingredients.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff's interactions even further to enhance the quality of interactions to consistently challenge children's learning, especially children who speak English as an additional language
• support all children further to understand what is happening now and next during their daily routines.