Happy Tots Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

All children learn that they are special and unique. Staff expertly support children to develop their confidence and self-esteem. They use many techniques to help children to celebrate their achievements. A wide variety of additional activities, including gymnastics, forest schools, rugby, football and yoga, give children opportunities to find out what their talents and interests are. A newly created sensory room provides children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) with a dedicated space to have their individual therapies and learning interventions. It is quiet and cosy. This helps to promote their ability to concentrate and learn.

All areas of the pre-school are inviting and comfortable. Children feel at ease as they choose what they would like to play with and where. They develop their small-muscle skills. For example, they eagerly join in with sawing, turning screws and hammering golfing tees into a carved pumpkin. Children make marks freely. They fetch clipboards and pens to draw a picture of their 'block bridge'. A group of children work together, finding the puzzle pieces in a large alphabet puzzle. Staff encourage them by telling them the initial sounds of the item they need to find. Children learn how to get along with their friends.

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

• The leadership team has a strong shared vision for what they offer. They centre this on helping children to achieve high levels of self-control. Children learn to effectively regulate their emotions and develop their speech and language skills. The education that staff give children is challenging and purposeful. Those staff in key leadership roles are highly qualified. They have a strong knowledge of how to provide for children's needs.
• Staff support children's emotional well-being as their main priority. All children who are identified as needing extra support have highly individualised care packages in place.
• Staff help families to know what they can do to help their children to learn at home. For example, they make individual resource packages for children to use at home when they are in need. They put films that demonstrate how to use the resources on the online information-sharing system for parents to watch.
• The team makes excellent use of all additional funding sources available to the pre-school. This is spent well and has a highly positive impact on children's lives. The strong partnership working with other agencies and organisations further supports this. A dedicated staff role is in place to offer families extra support and guidance.
• Leaders ensure that staff benefit from training and development opportunities. As a result, staff's skills are continuously improving. Some staff show highly developed teaching skills. All staff reflect on their practice. They seek and offer support to each other. Leaders give strong and insightful support to help staff develop their skills.
• Staff's assessments of children's skills and abilities are accurate. Leaders work to improve the provision, where they identify areas of learning that children are developing more slowly. For example, all staff focus on helping children to develop the language of mathematics. Staff talk to children about sizes and lengths during their play.
• Overall, children make good progress from their individual starting points in their speech and language development. Individual and small-group times support this well. However, at times, when children have story and singing time in a larger group, staff do not effectively support the youngest and less-able children. This leads to some children disengaging from the activity.
• Staff enthusiastically join in with children's play. They support children to develop their imaginative play. Staff and children pretend to give one another injections or 'jabs'. Children use real vegetables in their play kitchen to make a pretend dinner for their family. They enjoy naming the different vegetables.
• Children with SEND receive exceptional support. Staff who give children one-to-one support work together to give children a range of experiences that suit their needs. For example, they often go out on trips into the local community. Parents of children with SEND recognise the great bonds that their children have to their key people.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review how adult-led story and singing activities are delivered to the youngest and less-able children to enhance their meaningful engagement, learning and enjoyment.