Jellytots Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy, settled and secure at this friendly and welcoming setting. They are confident, enthusiastic and motivated to learn. Staff praise and encourage children. This helps to promote children's self-esteem. Children's behaviour is good. Staff provide gentle reminders, explanations and clear instructions so children know what is expected of them. Children become increasingly independent. Staff encourage them to make simple choices and decisions. For example, they encourage children to choose their favourite scents and dyes to add to ingredients as they make play dough. Children pour their own drinks and choose from healthy and nutritious snacks.

Children benefit from close bonds with staff, who are fun, sensitive, caring and kind. Staff plan exciting, challenging activities and experiences. They support children's learning well as they explore with sand and investigate with soil in the enclosed garden. Staff act as partners in children's play as they pretend to make ice creams and choose their favourite toppings. Children make marks with coloured pencils as they draw around animal stencils and talk with staff about different animal names. They are willing to try new activities and persist when things do not go as planned. Staff praise children for thinking of different ways to do things, and support their contributions and ideas.

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

• Staff support children's physical development well. Children climb, slide and stretch on play equipment outdoors. They balance on crates and stilts. Children develop coordination and strengthen their muscles in preparation for later skills, such as early writing. They fill and empty containers, make marks with chalks and guide toy trucks and cars through tunnels.
• Overall, there is good support for children's developing communication and language skills. Children take part in singing and story times. Staff use additional funding effectively to help fund programmes that provide extra support for children's communication and language development. However, the manager and deputy do not consistently structure group times to best support children's listening and attention skills.
• Children develop their mathematical skills. They learn about space, shape and measure as they fill and empty toy dumper trucks with soil. Children learn about the concepts of 'half' and 'full' as they count scoops of flour and identify colours of cups as part of an activity. Staff encourage children to share, take turns and play cooperatively.
• Children learn about the wider world beyond their own. For example, they go on trips around the local area and community, including the library and local shops. Staff encourage children to learn about nature and to care for their environment.
• For instance, children plant sunflowers and grow potatoes in the setting's garden. They learn about the smells and sounds of nature on nature walks and trips to the beach. Children benefit from fresh air and exercise on a daily basis.
• Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) very well. They work well with partner professionals in education and health to help provide consistent support for children. For example, staff have established strong relationships with the local nursery school to help strengthen support for children as they move to the next stage of their learning. Staff work with health visitors, who visit the setting to help complete joint assessments as part of the progress check for children aged between two and three years.
• Parents speak highly of staff at the setting and the variety of activities available. Links between children's learning at home and the setting are strong. For example, parents are encouraged to celebrate their children's achievements away from the setting by sharing them in the shape of a 'proud cloud' as part of a display.
• The manager provides robust support for her staff team and their well-being well through regular supervision sessions, appraisals and performance reviews. All staff have attended training on support for children with SEND to enhance their knowledge. The experienced manager and her deputy are hard working, well organised and passionate about continuously improving the service they provide.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review the structure of group times to better support children's listening and attention skills.