Langham Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enter the pre-school confidently. Their happy, smiling faces greet staff as they excitedly leave their parents to begin their pre-school day. Children who arrive early, wait eagerly for their friends to arrive so that they can engage in purposeful play with their favourite buddies. Children are very well behaved. They show a clear understanding of the pre-school's rules, for example, they confidently collect a small cushion from the rack to sit on during a planned phonics session. Children join in with the phonics song and act out the sounds enthusiastically.

Children show that they are keen and active learners. For example, they ask questions of the adults to enhance their learning. They excitedly join in with a wide range of well-planned activities, based around their interests, a current favourite being dinosaurs. Children design and make their own 'dinosaur swamp' in a large sand pit in the garden. They decide on the correct amount of water, flowers, leaves, twigs and soil they will need to make the swamp 'swampy' enough for them to stamp in, and for their dinosaur figures to roam in. Children make good progress in their learning. They are effectively supported by their key person who has high expectations of them, based on the sound and accurate knowledge they know about each child.

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

• Children show kindness and respect for each other. Staff have worked hard since the setting returned to full working following the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic lockdowns, to re-build children's understanding of boundaries. Children are actively involved in determining the rules. For example, they take photographs of each other to make a book about 'how to keep safe at pre-school'. The images show photographs and captions, for example, 'we place toys carefully in their boxes', rather than 'throwing them'.
• The manager and staff continuously develop their questioning skills to help children to think critically and to consider ways of resolving problems for themselves. Staff practise waiting for a period of time after asking a question to allow the child time to consider their answer. They try to phrase questions in the most open way. The impact of this is clear to see, as children take time to think about, consider and respond to questions from adults.
• Parents speak extremely highly of the staff and manager. They talk about how the staff help their children to feel safe and to settle confidently. They comment on the excellent parent partnerships and how staff help them to seek appropriate interventions from other agencies when their children require additional support. The manager constantly reviews their methods of communication, to ensure that she is reaching all parents.
• Staff confidently build on children's prior knowledge. They plan activities with various learning intentions for different children. For example, the paint printing activity, based on dinosaur feet, is planned as a fun painting experience for the younger children. Older children, however, are encouraged to focus on comparing the size of the dinosaur footprints with a mathematical learning intention.
• Children's literacy skills are enhanced across the setting. They have excellent opportunities to practise their writing skills as they freely access pens, paper, clip boards, chalk and paint. They borrow their favourite book each day from the setting to take home and share with their parents. Children tell staff what they want to be when they grow up and draw pictures of their chosen career. The list includes a superhero, a unicorn keeper and a helicopter.
• On occasions, staff do not follow through planned activities well enough to ensure that the learning intention is fully fulfilled. For example, they sometimes use books and other resources to support learning that are not appropriate. Some staff do not help the older children to develop the mathematical concepts planned for the printing activity, losing the opportunity to fulfil this intention.
• Staff do not always model learning for younger and less-able children. For example, they fail to notice when children cannot hold scissors and other tools correctly to enable them to achieve their chosen task.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop staffs' consistent implementation of the learning intentions of planned activities to enable children to gain the best outcome from these experiences
• support children to use tools and resources correctly to help to promote the physical development of younger children.