Folksworth Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide a nurturing environment for children and families. It begins when families visit the pre-school prior to starting and continues through each child's learning journey. Staff provide love and support for children, where they can build trusting relationships and feel safe. Therefore, children settle quickly at the pre-school and enjoy attending each day.

Staff focus on children's personal, social and emotional development. They provide praise and positive interactions to support children to gain confidence and a high level of self-esteem. Staff provide a range of opportunities to help children feel welcomed at the pre-school. For example, they display photographs of children and their families, helping them to feel valued and develop a sense of belonging Staff provide endless support for families, giving advice and reassurance where appropriate and develop good working partnerships with all parents.

Children are independent. They demonstrate their excellent skills at snack time when they are given the opportunities to pour their own drinks, cut and serve their own food and clear their plates. Children are confident to ask for help when needed and staff are responsive to children's needs. Children demonstrate excellent social skills, interacting with others, sharing, taking turns and holding two-way conversations. At times, children disagree. Staff are quick to respond and provide them with support and understanding to help them resolve any conflict quickly.

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

• The manager tailors the curriculum to children's individual needs and takes into account the experiences they receive at home to provide a vast range of learning opportunities. Staff focus on children's social skills to prepare them for school. For example, children learn important conversational skills so they can make friends. They learn how to carry out tasks independently and staff extend on children's learning dependant on their ages and stages of development. This gives children the knowledge and skills they need for future learning.
• Staff carry out in-depth risk assessments to ensure they are providing a safe environment for children. They carefully manage risks throughout the day and encourage children to keep themselves safe. As well as teaching children about online safety, they also talk to children about general risks in the pre-school and how they can prevent minor accidents. For example, when children choose a basket of resources, staff talk to them about a safe place to sit so that no one trips over.
• Children demonstrate excellent teamwork. They work together to build a large tower, taking turns to screw each piece on. Children solve problems and help each other. When they can no longer reach the top, they find a step to stand on.
• Children offer to help others and listen to their ideas. Staff support children when it is needed but skilfully stand back to help children develop their own thinking skills. At appropriate times, staff ask questions to extend on children's learning and they make predictions about the height of the tower. Staff help children test out their predictions and discuss the reasons why.
• The manager ensures key persons have regular contact with any other early years settings children attend. They regularly share information about children's development and when approaching school age, staff discuss how both settings can provide the best tailored support for each individual child. This partnership working provides children with consistency throughout their learning and well-supported transitions to their next setting.
• Staff plan for children's next steps, providing opportunities for children to learn new skills and knowledge. However, not all staff have a good understanding of the purpose of each activity and therefore, do not always implement it effectively.
• Staff plan an environment that supports children's love of reading. Children enjoy choosing books and sit independently to look at the pictures. Staff read to children with excitement and ask questions to support children's understanding. Children are also given opportunities to visit the local library bus that passes through the village. They enjoy choosing books and take these home to share with their families, supporting home learning opportunities.
• The management team implement a robust safer recruitment procedure to ensure staff working at the pre-school are safe to do so. Furthermore, they follow an in-depth induction programme for new staff to ensure they are well supported and gain important knowledge and skills in the first few weeks of working at the pre-school.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the planning of adult-led activities to help staff focus more precisely on clear learning intentions for all children.