Grange Tiny Hands Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish in this exceptional pre-school. They receive high-quality care in a calm and stimulating environment. Children arrive extremely happy, settle well and quickly become engrossed in play. They benefit from unique mindfulness sessions which help them to feel calm and focus their minds, ready for learning. Children are filled with awe and wonder as they learn about nature and living things. They handle giant African land snails and find out about their habitat and what they eat. Children learn about the life cycle of a butterfly. They delight as they release butterflies in the garden that they have cared for from small eggs. Staff take the opportunity to teach children the sign for 'butterfly' as the butterflies fly into the wild.

The indoor and outdoor environments are meticulously designed to meet the needs of the children. Both areas offer the same focus and high-quality experience for them. Children can independently access all the resources. Staff are on hand to support children when they require this, but stand back to allow them to explore and follow their own interests. For example, children learn to balance on an obstacle course independently. In the arts area, they find different materials to add to their picture, allowing them to follow their own lines of creative thinking.

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

• Practitioners provide an ambitious curriculum which is fully embedded in the pre-school. Children's experiences are designed to build on previous knowledge. Highly effective assessment is used to plan activities that help children make rapid progress in all areas of learning. Children show extremely high levels of self-regulation and form strong friendships. They share resources and behave remarkably well.
• Practitioners prioritise developing children's speech and language skills. They join in sensitively with conversations, modelling and repeating words. Talking points are thread through the provision to promote discussions. Staff use their knowledge and skills extremely well to equip children who have communication and language difficulties with an alternative means of communication, such as the use of pictures and signing.
• Children develop a genuine love of books. They snuggle up to staff as they read stories together. Staff expertly teach children about the world around them as they share books about different cultures and abilities. This also supports children to understand what makes them unique.
• During the COVID-19 pandemic, the provider went above and beyond to support children and their families. They regularly checked on their welfare, used funding money to purchase toys, such as bikes, scooters, and dolls, and provided food vouchers. Activity packs were prepared for children to enable them to continue learning at home.
• The manager fosters a culture of reflective practice throughout the pre-school. Her regular reflections allow the provision to continually improve to ensure that children excel from their experiences at the pre-school. A new sensory room provides space to extend the high-quality teaching. Children benefit from nurture groups and focused sensory experiences. The manager has high regard for her staff. They receive highly focused and effective professional development and supervision. This translates to improved teaching for the children. Staff feel valued and their well-being is exceptionally well considered within an extremely supportive team.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities are extremely well supported. Staff work closely with parents, carers and external agencies to ensure they receive the focused support they need. Funding is sharply focused to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged children. This ensures they progress exceptionally well and have the best possible start to the next stage in their education.
• Parents and carers speak extremely highly of the pre-school, commenting that it 'feels like an extended family'. Communication is excellent. Families are kept up to date with their child's progress and develop close relationships with their key person. Practitioners take time to talk to parents, offering guidance and reassurance as well as advice for children's home learning.