Heydays Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff provide a warm, welcoming, home-from-home environment. They offer children a wide range of activities and resources in well-organised play spaces. Children are happy and settle well. They show good relationships with their peers and invite them into their play. For example, they excitedly pack clothes and essential items into suitcases and pretend to go on holiday. Staff engage children in discussions about different modes of transport and talk about the countries they might be travelling to. This helps to support their growing understanding of the wider world.

Staff form strong bonds with all children and treat them as unique individuals. They embed children's home cultures and traditions into the pre-school and encourage them to share their home languages as they engage in their play. This promotes a sense of belonging at the setting.

Children show good independence skills. They eagerly put away their belongings on arrival and help themselves to a healthy breakfast. Children manage their personal care needs well. They naturally wash their hands after blowing their noses and before eating. Children eagerly open their own lunch boxes and actively engage in discussion about the importance of exercise and eating healthy food. They have a go at opening packaging and independently peel their own fruit. This helps to support school readiness.

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

• Staff spend time getting to know children well. They assess children's learning accurately and plan a curriculum that supports their developmental needs. Children are highly motivated and quickly engage in the learning experiences staff provide. However, staff do not consistently challenge children's learning to the highest level. On occasion, they are a little directive. They do not give children the time they need to think and problem-solve for themselves to help build on their developing skills even further.
• Staff promote children's literacy skills well. For example, children delight in spraying water onto different surfaces, which helps to build on the muscles in their hands and fingers. They use a variety of resources to make patterns in the sand and write notes to their parents on their artwork.
• Staff place a strong focus on children's health and well-being. They teach children about the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle as they engage in their play.
• Children demonstrate a good understanding of oral hygiene. They delight in creating an ice cream shop and continue their pretend play with a visit to the dentist.
• Staff are good role models and demonstrate respect and politeness in a consistent manner. Children behave well. They show kindness to others and help staff sweep up the sand at tidy-up time. They demonstrate good negotiation skills and act out different characters as they create their ice cream shop.
• The manager seeks staff's views to help make improvements to the setting. She monitors staff's practice and provides them with regular supervision, where she sets some measurable targets. Staff access online courses to help build on their knowledge. However, the manager needs to target professional development even more precisely to raise the quality of teaching to an even higher level.
• Parents speak positively about the progress their children are making. They say staff regularly share information on their child's progress and offer them support and guidance to help continue their children's learning at home.
• Staff work collaboratively with the on-site school. They share information and good practice so that children are ready for the next stage in their education. Older children benefit from spending a day at the school once a week. They enjoy listening to stories in the library and eat lunch alongside the schoolchildren. This helps them to become familiar with school staff and their surroundings and supports their transition to school.
• Children benefit from fresh air and exercise every day. They build on their stamina as they place planks across large tyres and show good coordination skills as they balance across them. They develop their core strength as they work together to move their trikes onto the slopes of the grass. Children praise each other for a job well done and show great pleasure in their achievements.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen interactions with children to ensure that they are consistently challenged to think and problem-solve for themselves, to help build on their developing skills even further
• continue to build on the professional development of staff to help raise the quality of teaching to the highest level.