Ellesmere Ducklings Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are extremely happy and settled. They confidently and independently explore their environment, choosing where and what they want to play with. Children enjoy playing musical instruments and singing along to familiar songs and rhymes. Staff show the children high levels of care. This helps children to form lasting bonds with the staff who care for them. The curriculum covers all areas of learning. Staff provide the children with an array of rich learning experiences that spark their interests. Consequently, children make good progress in their learning.

Children show their knowledge of the routine. For instance, they stop and raise their hands once staff shake the musical instrument. All children follow staff's instructions well. Staff are consistent with how they manage children's behaviour. Children behave well. Children thoroughly enjoy their time outside. They smile and laugh as they ride a range of bikes or scooters. They also use their imagination as they 'cook' in the home corner. Mealtimes are very social. Staff support the children to eat their meals, where required. They offer children water or milk throughout the day. Children have fun making marks using chalks or using their hands to fill and empty containers with sand.

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

• Leaders are passionate about their work. They are keen to use the views of others to help make continued improvements to the setting. Leaders now carry out suitability checks on all staff and maintain accurate records of this.
• Staff know their key children well. They find out key information about the children through discussions with parents. Staff then complete their own observations and assessments on the children. They use this information to help understand and better meet their key children's individual needs.
• Leaders make swift referrals to other professionals when they become concerned about a child's development. Staff work well alongside other professionals and parents to develop plans for children based on their individual health, development or care needs. This helps to ensure that children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive the timely and specialist help they require.
• Leaders have developed an ambitious curriculum, which staff have secure knowledge of. Staff use what they know about the children to help plan a range of purposeful and stimulating activities. However, the organisation of large-group or circle time activities is not well thought out. For instance, children are requested to sit, pay attention and join in with large-group activities, and some children become quite fidgety and lose focus during this time.
• Leaders place focus on supporting children's communication and language development. Staff read stories clearly and with lots of expression and enthusiasm. This helps to capture children's interest. Children become immersed into the story they are listening to.
• Staff support children to build on their self-care and independence skills. They encourage children to try and complete tasks for themselves. However, there are occasions where staff do not notice when some children require support to use the tools they are given.
• Staff are positive role models to the children. They talk to the children about their actions, while positively reminding them of the 'golden rules'. This helps children to understand what is expected of them.
• Staff immediately notice and respond to children when they need the toilet or when they require changing. They support children to wash their hands, where required. This helps children to start to understand how they can keep themselves clean.
• Parents speak highly about the staff and leaders. They state that their children enjoy coming to pre-school. Staff keep parents informed of their child's development and ways they can support their child at home.
• Staff speak positively about how leaders support them. Leaders complete regular observations and review meetings with staff. Together they reflect on staff's performance and ways that this can be improved further.
• Leaders have rooms they can use to hold confidential meetings with parents. They actively investigate all complaints and keep robust records of this. Leaders use this to help develop recommendations on where practice could be improved. They provide parents with an outcome from their complaint within a timely manner.
• Leaders take steps to ensure their pre-school is accessible to all children within the local community. They make adaptations to the environment and activities based on the children's needs.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• organise large-group or circle time activities better with an aim to support all children to sustain high levels of engagement
• support staff to provide children with the specific knowledge and skills they require as they attempt to complete tasks for themselves.