Jack And Jill Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish in the calm environment that staff create. All children, including those who are new to the pre-school, settle very well. They enter the setting, and staff give them a warm and friendly welcome. Children make the choice about where they would like to play and take the lead in their learning experiences. Children learn about kindness and being friends with others. They explore this throughout their day, including during story times. This helps children to understand the needs and feelings of others. Children make artwork creations from their imaginations, which staff highly value. Staff ask effective questions to extend conversations and help children to annotate their pictures.

Children receive the time they need to think through their response to questions that staff ask of them. This enables them to gather their thoughts and to express themselves successfully and to converse using a good variety of words. Children are beginning to recognise letters and letter sounds. They identify written letters and can talk about names of people or objects that begin with that letter. For example, they quickly identify that sand starts with the letter 's'. They have many opportunities to practise writing the letters and verbalising letter sounds. The manager has a good oversight of what children need to learn next. This includes the steps staff take to help all children to make good developmental progress.

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

• The manager has clear processes in place for how staff plan the curriculum. Staff use a cycle of observation and assessment to enable them to plan specifically for children's individual care and learning needs. Staff ensure that children have fully grasped a concept before moving them on. For instance, staff ensure that children are confident in counting and recognising the numbers one to five before extending this further.
• The manager assesses staff's practice effectively, which helps to continually improve the provision and extend children's learning. She understands how to evaluate staff's strengths and aspects of practice or an activity that they can develop further. Staff also have a clear awareness of how they can extend the activities they plan for children. This helps to maintain their interest and levels of engagement.
• Children learn about celebrations, such as Chinese New Year. However, staff do not always consider and embrace the differing cultural backgrounds of children attending the setting. This does not further support children's sense of belonging and strengthen their understanding of similarities and differences.
• Children thoroughly enjoy outdoor play and the opportunities to be physically active. They show great skill as they carefully steer their ride-on toys around the equipment and other children and adults. Children relish exploring the sand and soil and show great excitement as they discover ice in the garden.
• Children learn about the importance of adopting a healthy lifestyle. They explore foods that are healthy at snack and mealtimes. Children understand the importance of dental hygiene and recently enjoyed a talk given by a visitor about this. They learned about how many times per day and for how long they should clean their teeth.
• Staff do not consistently reinforce children's awareness or respect for the toys and resources. Sometimes, staff do not set a good example, and children follow when they walk over the toys. Consequently, children occasionally walk over books in the reading area.
• The manager provides staff with encouragement in respect of their practice and development. She ensures that she supports their well-being and fosters an approach of working together. This enables staff to access training and extend their professionalism, which in turn enhances the outcomes for children.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities receive effective support to move on in their learning. Staff actively work in partnership with professionals to implement support plans without delay. Staff seek additional training to further increase their knowledge of strategies to implement.
• Staff develop effective partnerships with parents and carers. Parents make very positive comments about the provision and the hardworking and stable staff team. They say that their children make good developmental progress across all areas of learning. Parents report that settling-in sessions are unique to the needs of children, enabling them to quickly feel safe and secure.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• embrace children's awareness of differing backgrounds and cultures of those attending the setting
• support staff to act as positive role models for children, to help strengthen their awareness of and respect for toys and resources.