Edmonton Baptist Church Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are kind, caring and responsive to children's individual needs. They offer warm welcomes to children as they arrive. This helps children to feel happy and demonstrates that they feel safe. Staff have high expectations of children's behaviour. They encourage children to share and play cooperatively with their peers. For example, children delight in building walls with their friends, using large foam bricks and metal bolts to connect large pipes. Staff use a tape measure with children to measure their height. They teach children to practise reading out numbers on the tape measure. This helps to develop children's mathematical skills effectively.

Funding is used appropriately. For example, the manager uses funding to provide one-to-one support for children. This supports children who are vulnerable and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities to make good progress.

Children enjoy physical activities and fresh air when playing outside. Staff provide opportunities that present challenge and encourage children to take risks in their play. They support children to learn how to keep safe and develop an awareness of their surroundings. For instance, children make up games in the garden. They ride around on wheeled toys as they pretend to cross roads. Children use stop signs and shout out to their friends to 'stop, look and listen' as they ride over their road mats.

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

• The manager and staff team implement an ambitious curriculum. This focuses on children's interests and what they already know, to promote further learning. Staff know the children very well. This allows them to move children's learning on from the moment they start.
• Staff encourage children to learn about the world around them. For example, children use real vegetables to explore in play and plant broad beans and cress in small pots. Staff use these opportunities to encourage children to compare the different colours, textures and size of the vegetables. Children know that fruit and vegetables are healthy foods, and that some grow under the soil and some grow on trees. This helps children to understand the natural world they live in.
• Staff focus well on supporting children's language and communication skills. They engage children in good discussions, extending vocabulary and role modelling words. Children enjoy stories and singing nursery rhymes. Some children take part in targeted, small-group communication sessions. These help children to become even more confident to talk and help to close any identified gaps in their learning.
• Staff teach children how to lead healthy lifestyles exceptionally well. Children are supported to develop both their fine and gross motor skills. Staff provide a range of experiences, such as various exercises to develop children's core muscles, coordination and balance. Staff give children challenges to extend their skills, such as stretching like a 'string bean' and curling up into a ball like a 'jelly bean'.
• Children show they are confident and able in mathematics and are learning to count, recognise numbers and make simple calculations. For example, children gain skills in counting and sorting as they make minibeasts with play dough. Children add wooden sticks for the legs of spiders and roll balls of dough for the dots on a ladybird. They count the number of dots on a ladybird and the number of legs on the spiders they create. The curriculum for mathematics is well considered throughout the setting.
• Staff implement shared strategies to manage behaviour and effectively communicate with each other to support unwanted behaviour. Staff provide inviting environments for children to explore and promote their learning and development. However, staff do not routinely encourage children to develop a sense of responsibility and to take care of their environment and toys. For example, on occasion, children leave toys on the floor and others walk over books without putting them away after play.
• Partnerships with parents are a strength of the pre-school. Parents comment that their children are receiving very good care. They welcome the effective communication they receive about their children's progress. Staff provide information to help parents to support their children's learning further at home. Parents are invited to attend workshops that help them to support children's physical development and fine motor skills in readiness for writing.
• Staff work together extremely well. The manager values the staff team and uses supervision sessions to talk about staff's well-being. She identifies training that is specific to individual staff's needs. The manager recognises the importance of keeping staff's professional development up to date. Staff comment on the strong relationships they have and feel supported by the manager.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen opportunities for children to take more responsibility for their toys and the environment.