Kleverkids Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children have access to a wide range of activities which are designed to ignite their curiosity and thirst for learning. Free flow from indoors to outdoors allows children the choice of where they want to learn. Children sustain high levels of engagement in their chosen activities as staff skilfully interact alongside them in their play. Indoors, children enjoy 'catching' rubber ducks in the water tray. They scoop and pour water and sing songs together. Children learn to take turns and understand the rules. They know they must wait for aprons before accessing the painting area.

Staff know the children very well and provide activities to promote their learning. Children enjoy programming a robot bee. They count and press the buttons the amount of times they want the robot bee to move along the 'road map'. Staff support children to include their friends who may need more help. Children are reminded that sometimes we need to be patient. Consequently, they behave well.

Outdoors, children use their large-muscle skills to hoopla. They run and climb on the climbing apparatus. Opportunities to practise small-muscle skills are offered. Children use tweezers to pick up pom-poms and carefully place these onto dots that have been painted on a plate. They are gaining the skills needed for pencil control and writing. Children have fun. They demonstrate that they feel safe and secure, and form strong attachments to staff, who are kind and caring.

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

• Children learn about numbers. They recognise numerals and are learning to count. Activities provided in line with children's interests, such as messy play, help to promote children's understanding of numbers. A large tray of jelly provides a fun opportunity for children to squish, and feel the jelly through their fingers. Plastic numbers are hidden inside the jelly which children find, and they talk about the numbers. Some children confidently count past 10. However, there is little representation or teaching of numbers beyond this to provide more challenge to support children to make outstanding progress.
• The provider's curriculum places a strong focus on communication and language. Children undergo regular screening to swiftly identify any gaps in their communication skills. Support plans and targets are put into place to support children while referrals are made to external agencies. Staff talk to children and interact with them in their play. However, on occasion, questions asked by staff only require a single word answer from children.
• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is superb. The provider uses her excellent knowledge of child development to quickly identify those children who may need extra support. Regular meetings with parents, and support to complete forms, ensure that any help from outside agencies is obtained at the earliest opportunity. This means children make the best progress they can.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Parents comment that they like the setting and their child has made progress. They appreciate the support they receive in completing referrals to get help for their children. Regular updates for parents on their children's progress are shared through meetings and an online application. The provider and staff team are working on how to support parents even further with their children's learning at home.
• Children learn how to be healthy. Once a fortnight, an outside company comes to complete sporting activities with children outdoors. This helps children learn about the positive effective exercise has their bodies. Children are confident. They learn to be independent. Children fetch their own coats and shoes and dress themselves. They can access the toilet independently and know to wash their hands afterwards. Children particularly enjoy helping to chop up fruit with their own special knife at snack time.
• Accurate assessments and evaluation of the setting by the provider and staff mean any gaps in children's learning are swiftly identified. They use this information to precisely plan and provide even more activities to ensure the children receive a broad and varied curriculum. Recently, the provider identified that children were behind in their mathematical skills and literacy. Story bags have been brought in to create story sacks, to continue to develop a love of reading in children. Children are gaining the skills required for their next stage in learning.
• Staff report good levels of morale and they work well together as a team. They access training which supports their professional development. This, alongside regular supervision and mentoring, ensures the quality of teaching is consistently good.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• strengthen the already good curriculum for communication and language by supporting staff to ask more questions which require longer responses from children, to promote their language skills even further
• support staff to further challenge the most-able children, to help them make outstanding progress.