Elveden Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Parents and children receive a warm and friendly welcome from the manager and staff. Children happily separate from their parents. They build strong and emotionally supportive bonds with their key person and staff, which helps them to feel safe and secure. Children form friendships with their peers and happily play together. They learn through a balance of child-initiated play and adult-led activities. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress from their starting points.

Children's behaviour is good. They share, take turns and use their manners with gentle reminders from staff. Staff act as excellent role models. They listen intently to what children have to say and treat them with respect. Children receive an abundance of encouragement and praise, which helps to boost their self-esteem and confidence in their abilities.

Children have daily opportunities to play and explore outside. They demonstrate their physical skills while they climb up steps and 'whoosh' down the slide. Children learn about the natural world. They help staff to plant and grow strawberries, and learn where food comes from. Children learn about different cultures and festivals, such as Diwali and Chinese New Year. This helps them to appreciate diversity and accept other people's differences.

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

• The manager is passionate and committed to her role. She values her staff team and their ideas and suggestions for different activities. The manager and staff reflect on their practice and identify any coaching or training needs to build on their knowledge and to develop further.
• Parent partnerships are good. Parents speak highly of the pre-school and the care their children receive. Staff hold daily conversations with parents and keep them informed on the progress their children make. The manager liaises closely with parents and other professionals to support children's specific learning needs, to help provide a consistent approach.
• The manager and staff are knowledgeable about the children and develop a broad and balanced curriculum which considers their next steps and interests. For example, children show interest in living creatures. Staff use this curiosity to design enjoyable activities, such as modelling spiders out of dough. Children manipulate the dough, helping to develop the small muscles in their hands. However, staff do not consistently make the most of opportunities that arise to expand on children's interests and learning even further.
• Staff encourage children to develop a love of books. They read stories with enthusiasm, and children snuggle up to them and listen carefully. Staff provide a narrative while children play. They engage children in meaningful conversations and introduce new words, which helps to support children's communication and language skills.
• Staff encourage children's independence skills effectively. Children wash and dry their hands and safely use knives to butter crackers for snack time. Staff provide children with healthy snacks and encourage parents to provide nutritionally balanced packed lunches each day.
• Overall, daily routines are organised well. However, on occasion, the manager and staff do not communicate with each other effectively when it is time for children to come inside from the garden for mealtimes. Therefore, children are not always aware of what is happening now and next.
• Children enjoy using their imagination. They have fun in the role play kitchen and pretend to cook the toy food and serve meals to the staff and their friends. Children have opportunities to express themselves and explore different creative materials. They excitedly tell the inspector that they love painting pictures of butterflies and bunnies.
• The manager has established good links with staff at local schools. She invites Reception Year class teachers into the pre-school to visit children prior to them starting school, which helps to support smooth transitions in children's further education.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen staff teaching to skilfully hold conversations with children to increase and expand on their interests and learning even further
• strengthen communication between staff, so that children understand what is happening now and next in the daily routines.