Ladybirds Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff warmly welcome children on their arrival at the pre-school. They immediately support the children's developing independence and sense of responsibility. For example, children remove their outdoor clothing and register themselves into the group by finding their individual name card. Staff readily help children who need extra support. Older children demonstrate that they can recognise their name. Staff actively support children to manage their feelings and play cooperatively with their peers. Children sensibly line up to take their turn on the slide and patiently wait for their turn to use the ride-on toys.

Staff create a learning environment that captivates the interests of the children. This encourages children to explore and investigate the activities provided. For example, staff support children to understand how plants and flowers grow. They successfully introduce vocabulary, such as 'stem' and 'petal' and encourage the children to draw pictures of the flowers displayed. Children demonstrate pride in their achievements. They smile and want to share their pictures with the staff. Staff provide daily opportunities for the children to be physically active in the fresh air. They support children to take risks and to persevere as they climb on the climbing wall and walk along the raised balance beam. Children move wheeled toys with confidence, demonstrating that they understand when to 'stop' and when to 'go'.

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

• Management and the staff work well together as a team. They support one another's well-being, share practice ideas, and regularly evaluate the overall quality of the provision. For example, management has recognised that activities, such as story time are not always effective because the number of children listening to the story is too large. As a result, they plan to revise procedures to ensure all children benefit from the activities provided.
• The manager and staff structure the curriculum to cover all areas of learning. Staff complete ongoing observations of the children to monitor their progress and well-being. This successfully supports staff to understand each child's personality, interests and learning needs. Staff supervise the children well and join in the children's play. However, on occasions staff do not use spontaneous opportunities to further extend the children's thinking and enjoyment.
• Staff effectively support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They involve parents in discussions and decision-making about their child. Staff work with other professionals and provide children with one-to-one support. They plan specific activities to support the targets set for each individual child. This support ensures all children are included and enables them to make good progress from their starting points. Furthermore, staff support children who receive early years pupil premium funding. For example, additional funding has been used to purchase a range of sensory toys. This has helped to reduce children's anxiety and has supported their concentration skills.
• Staff demonstrate that they know the children well. They form close attachments with children. This successfully supports children's emotional well-being. Children demonstrate that they enjoy the activities provided. However, rigid routines sometimes prevent the children from completing the activities they are enjoying and learning from.
• Staff support children's language and communication skills. New words are introduced associated to the children's play and they are taught a range of songs and rhymes. For example, children sing 'Old MacDonald had a farm' and enthusiastically make the associated animal sounds. Staff also successfully introduce songs which support the children to understand concepts, such as 'big and small', 'short and tall' and 'fast and slow'. Additionally, Makaton and picture cards are effectively used to aid the communication of children with identified special educational needs and/or disabilities.
• Management and staff develop good relationships with parents and carers. Parents receive daily verbal communication from their child's key person and regular written updates about their child's development. They are invited to spend time in the pre-school. For example, parents attend stay-and-play sessions where they are able to, for example, compete craft activities with their children. Additionally, parents are given ideas to support their child's ongoing learning at home, such as sharing story books with their child.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to use every opportunity to extend children's learning during spontaneous play activities
• review the organisation of routines to better meet children's individual needs and learning outcomes.