Garden of Eden Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive eager and full of enthusiasm to start their day at this pre-school. They settle quickly at group time and demonstrate positive relationships with peers and adults alike. Staff lead children in singing their 'toothbrush' song, and use recall to ask children questions about oral health. Children enjoy voicing their ideas regarding why they must brush their teeth. Staff value their contributions, encouraging children to listen to one another. This helps children to learn how they can contribute towards their own good health.

Staff use their knowledge of the children to decide what they need to learn. This informs what staff set up in the play spaces so children gain exposure to a balanced curriculum. This helps to build on what children already know, remember and can do. Staff consistently engage with the children and provide purposeful interactions. For example, children behave well as they concentrate, listening to the adult sharing a favourite story. The member of staff reads with gusto and good levels of intonation to keep children interested. They expose children to a range of rhyming words to build on their growing range of vocabulary.

Children have lots of opportunities to practise and revisit activities that help promote their gross motor movements. For instance, children delight in participating in balance bike lessons. They learn how to navigate obstacles and listen to instructions to follow tracks on the playground. This supports developing their physical skills and spatial awareness.

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

• The new manager identifies the priorities for what they want children to learn and why. There is a residual impact from the COVID-19 pandemic that the staff team is working on to help mitigate. As such, there is a strong focus on supporting children's social skills, emotional resilience, and communication skills. Staff skilfully blend talking about emotions and how children feel into activities, where appropriate. This helps children to start navigating social cues and language needed when negotiating with their friends. This is in relation to sharing, turn taking and articulating their own needs as well as considering the needs of others.
• Staff take time to explain to children the plan for the day so they know what is on offer. However, there are some aspects of the daily routine that are not as well organised. This means that children are waiting too long to transition from one part of their day to the next. As such, this impacts on some children's behaviour as they become restless and unsettled. Despite this, as soon as children move on to their next activity, behaviour improves rapidly and they quickly re-engage.
• The manager accurately evaluates the practice strengths and areas for development within the staff team. She recognises that there is some inconsistency in the key-person approach that means continuity can be impacted if staff are not working when key children attend. The manager plans to address this, but it is yet to be started.
• Staff know the children very well and show genuine interest in their views and ideas. They take time to listen to children and provide empathetic support and care. For instance, staff support children with suggestions on how to overcome minor altercations between their friends. This empowers children with ways to overcome setbacks in their play. Consequently, children behave well and demonstrate resilience to bounce back swiftly to play collaboratively with their friends.
• Staff reflect on what children do during play to identify children's next steps in learning and how they intend to teach this. However, the plans that set out targets to work on for children with delays in their learning are too broad. Plans do not provide a sharp enough focus to ensure that actions are measurable to help children make regular, incremental progress. Nevertheless, children demonstrate they are happy and settled and key persons provide individualised time and support to help them catch up.
• Staff comment that they feel well supported and receive inductions to help them understand their roles and responsibilities. The new manager is undertaking supervision discussions with her staff. However, she is yet to identify actions to build on staff's professional development so practice continually improves over time.
• Staff use their precise knowledge of children's interests to extend their learning. For instance, children show curiosity about the bugs they find out in the garden. This builds on previous bug hunts in the local community. Staff revisit this activity and provide children with magnifying glasses and bug identity sheets to help develop their knowledge about the natural world.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the organisation of daily routines to ensure that they are smooth and efficient so children are not waiting excessive amounts of time to transition to the next part of their day
• strengthen the key-person approach to ensure that, in the absence of a member of staff, arrangements are in place so all staff are aware of the learning needs of children
• develop the support plans in place for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities to provide regular, measurable actions so all staff know how to implement strategies
• provide more effective supervision, with actions to offer support, coaching and training for staff to help raise practice to an even higher level.