Ducklings Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children learn to make decisions for themselves, choosing where and who to play with. Staff provide children with the skills to help them become independent. For instance, they encourage children to take off their coats and hang them on name-labelled pegs. Staff encourage them to find their own lunchboxes and to self-serve their own lunches. Children's confidence strengthens through these everyday routine tasks. This helps to support their self-help skills. Children take part in regular discussions and practices to help them understand about personal health and hygiene. Staff talk to them about the importance of handwashing and healthy eating. They use role play effectively to support children's understanding about oral health, acting out the process of cleaning their teeth. They extend this further by providing families with toothbrushes and information about oral hygiene.

Children are very eager and enthusiastic to learn more. They constantly question, show curiosity and inquisitiveness in their play. Staff use very effective questioning to encourage children to think critically and to probe for answers that make sense to them.

Children's home experiences are successfully enhanced through outings to the local community. Children learn about lending books from the library and buying their snacks from the supermarket. They learn about road safety on the way to the park and learn about the care of animals from the pet shop.

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

• Children make friends easily. They learn how to accept others into their play through the effective interactions and support from staff. Children develop abilities to play alongside each other to enthusiastically invite their friends into their play to share experiences. Children negotiate and cooperate with their friends, understanding the rules of social interaction through harmonious play.
• Staff work cohesiveness, acting as positive role models for children on how to support each other. They use ongoing support networks and effective communication to share information about children and their families. This highly promotes continuous care for children, positively impacting on their emotional well-being. Management oversee this process to strongly promote staff's well-being.
• Staff provide children with a good range of adult-led and child-initiated play, both indoors and outdoors. Generally, planned and routine activities successfully support children's next steps in learning. For instance, specifically challenging those older children. However, some routine and group activities do not fully engage younger children as they are too complex for their understanding and participation.
• Parents make very positive comments about the support they receive to help promote their children's ongoing learning and care. Staff give effective guidance and advice to help parents become aware of purposeful play and learning. For example, staff share information about the importance of reading books with children and how to support toilet training.
• Children understand right from wrong. They are quick to respond to other children's behaviour by reporting to adults. For example, older children tell staff that their friend's knocked-over tower will make their friend sad. However, staff do not support effectively children's understanding of respect and responsibility for their environment. For instance, children are not encouraged to tidy up after themselves once they have finished with resources.
• Children's communication and language are continuously supported throughout their play. Staff celebrate children's speech to help them feel proud about the words that they use. Children who speak English as an additional language use expressions and gestures to communicate their ideas in play. For example, they grimace, smile, show amazement and excitement when acting out being at the hairdressers. Staff continuously talk in simple English words to help children become confident to try new words.
• Staff are eager to improve and develop their practices according to the needs of the children attending. They use guidance and advice well to adapt and change their practice. Staff are very aware of the community needs and positively support parents by signposting to additional services to promote their knowledge and welfare. They evaluate effectiveness as a team and support each other to develop ideas for their children.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance staff's knowledge and understanding of adapting practice to support younger children and meet their specific needs
• increase children's respect and responsibility towards their environment and resources within routine tasks and transitional activities.