Hillside Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are warmly welcomed by a friendly, nurturing, and long-established staff team. They enter with eagerness and confidence into an organised, inviting setting. Children enjoy freely exploring the environment and the activities provided by staff. Children excitedly greet their friends as they begin to play, mixing paint, building with construction blocks, and creating dinosaurs with different features from the play dough. Children have strong bonds with staff and enjoy engaging and initiating conversations with them as they explore and discuss storybooks. Staff know every child very well and are highly attentive to their needs. They praise children's efforts and celebrate their good behaviour. Children who are new to the setting receive good support. Staff help them with building friendships and understanding daily routines.

Children thoroughly enjoy playing in the well-resourced outdoor learning environment each day. Staff play alongside the children, promoting good manners and praising them when they share. They model new language and help develop children's physical development and control. For example, staff play a throwing and catching game with children and speak with them about body positioning. Staff also use this opportunity to use mathematical vocabulary, such as 'short' and 'long', 'bigger' and 'smaller'.

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

• Staff carefully plan and deliver activities that build on children's prior knowledge and skills. They regularly assess children's progress to identify and address any gaps in learning and to ensure that children make good progress in all areas of learning and development.
• Staff encourage children to explore their emotions as they play with toys where characters can be used to depict different feelings. Staff skilfully use this activity to talk about children's families, and children speak excitedly as they describe members of their household.
• Staff spend quality time engaging with children. Children thoroughly enjoy mixing paint and gasp with delight when they rub their painted hands together to make a new colour.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Staff make sure that parents are well informed about their children's learning and progress. Parents speak of how quick the staff are to identify gaps in learning and extra support that may be beneficial, such as speech and language. Parents feel that staff support them in the correct referral process to get prompt support for their children.
• Overall, staff support children's early language development well. They engage children in conversations during play and ask a good range of questions to promote their thinking. Staff introduce new language when they talk with children, read stories, and sit with the children at snack time. They introduce the children to songs where new words are linked with actions. For example, the children thoroughly enjoy taking part in a movement song where they must clap, swing, stretch and bend. However, for children who speak English as an additional language, opportunities to celebrate their home languages are not planned effectively.
• Children are supported to develop their skills in preparation for their move to the next stage of their learning journey. However, on occasion, staff do not maximise opportunities for independence and for children to make choices in their own learning. For example, staff provide resources for the children to play with rather than letting them self-select.
• Leaders support staff well to attend training that has a direct impact on children's learning. This has improved how staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. For example, recent training has helped staff to develop their knowledge of how to tailor interactions to meet the specific needs of children.
• Children spend time taking part in events that help to broaden their experiences. They enjoy visiting the local allotments, where they can see the compost they make at pre-school, with their fruit and vegetable waste being used to help to grow produce.
• Children make good progress in their mathematical and literacy development. Pre-school children write their names on their paintings with support. Children refer to numerals displayed in the environment while they play. For example, in the home corner, children enjoy counting the tins of food and matching the amount to the correct numeral.
• Staff provide challenge for children and support their developing abilities to solve problems. They introduce new learning and use questioning effectively to further their understanding. For example, staff challenge children to construct their own gardens using Lego bricks. When children find joining the smaller pieces tricky, staff support them by saying, 'I can hold the board and you push the brick in place'. Children beam with pride at their achievement.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• include children's home languages in everyday activities and routines to help them feel valued and increase their communication and language skills
• extend opportunities for children to make choices about their own activities, to increase levels of independence in their learning.