Happytots Pre-school

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children receive a positive start to their early education. Staff have developed strong relationships with children and know them well. They use key information to plan effectively for children's learning and well-being. There is a strong focus on supporting children's communication and language skills, as well as their personal, social and emotional development. This is particularly evident for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Leaders act swiftly to target support to help children close gaps in their learning and development. All children make good progress at the setting.

The curriculum is carefully sequenced and builds on what children already know and can do. Staff implement the intention of learning through their interactions effectively, and they skilfully follow children's interests. This helps to maintain children's high levels of engagement in their learning. Children love being outdoors in all weathers. Staff understand the importance of physical activity, and they share the children's enthusiasm as they are encouraged to stomp like dinosaurs to help burn off some of their energy and emotions. Younger children show their delight by laughing as they splash in the water trays as they fish out and match coloured bears into the correct trays.

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

• Managers are dedicated and have effective oversight of the pre-school. There are clear systems in place to monitor practice and give staff valuable support and guidance. Managers understand the pre-school's strengths and where their attention is best placed. Staff say that they feel well supported and are encouraged to grow within their role. This has a positive impact on the care and education that the children receive.
• Managers and staff foster effective relationships with multi-agency partners, such as health and local authority advisory teams. This helps to ensure that staff receive specialist advice and guidance to support their key children and promote their well-being and development at the earliest opportunity. As such, the support for children with SEND and those that may benefit from early help and intervention is strong, and these children make rapid progress.
• Children are developing a love of stories and books. Staff encourage parents to read and share stories with their children. Children develop their listening and attention skills as they sit for significant periods, for their young age, engaged in the stories and song sessions that staff creatively lead. They look at books independently and enjoy dressing up for World Book Day. They are learning that print carries meaning, and they enjoy making marks that begin to represent letters in their names through craft activities. This prepares them well for their next stage in learning.
• Children demonstrate a clear understanding of the pre-school's routines. They are eager to join in with group times and happy to help tidy up their toys. Staff are clear about the support strategies in place for those children that require additional help to manage their emotions. In general, children behave well. However, when minor disputes occur, inconsistencies in managing these does not prevent them from reoccurring. This can leave some children unclear about what is expected of their behaviour at the setting.
• Staff deploy themselves well to ensure that children are in sight and listening at all times. This helps keep children safe and ensures that staff are readily available to meet the children's learning needs. For example, staff closely supervise children as they explore cutting real fruit and vegetables in the home corner. They also ensure that they are down at children's level, reinforcing spoken words and new vocabulary with visual cues and signs for non-verbal children and for those who have English as an additional language. This ensures that all children can make progress in their learning and feel safe and secure due to being fully included and welcomed at the setting.
• The provider has effective systems in place for sharing information with parents relating to their children's learning and development. Parents are able to share the good progress that their children make. For example, parents have seen a noticeable improvement in their children's social and communication skills. These skills ensure that children are ready for their next stage in learning. The setting is particularly good at sharing joint strategies and targets for children with SEND and regularly reviewing these with parents. The systems are less established for routinely providing all parents with information and ideas about how to support their children's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to understand and consistently implement the setting's behaviour management strategies to help all children understand what is expected of them
• strengthen systems in place for providing parents with information on how to support their child's learning at home.