Lilliput Learners

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time at the warm, welcoming and well-organised pre-school. The well-qualified and experienced staff successfully incorporate children's interests into well-planned activities. For instance, children show an interest in exploring insects and bugs in the garden. Staff provide resources such as magnifying glasses and pots to enable children to collect the bugs and investigate them further. Children delight in catching bugs and listening to stories about them. They comment that a spider's web is almost invisible.

Children make good progress in speech and language. Staff provide a language-rich environment. For example, during activities, they provide a dialogue, listen to what children have to say and introduce new words. Staff are proactive in identifying children who need additional support and implementing targeted help. Subsequently, most children are confident when communicating with adults and peers. They happily express their views and opinions with clarity and have a wide range of vocabulary.

Children behave well and have a positive attitude to their learning. They persevere well with activities and receive huge encouragement and praise from the adults caring for them. Staff support children's confidence effectively, helping them to believe they can succeed in their achievements. For example, when children find using scissors a little challenging, they encourage them to keep trying. As a result, children demonstrate a 'can-do' attitude and keep trying until they succeed.

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

• Overall, teaching is strong. The manager and staff ensure that children are provided with a well-designed curriculum. Staff know the children very well. They identify what children need to learn next and provide activities to help build on children's existing knowledge and skills. For the most part, staff engage well with children. However, on occasion, they do not notice when children who are new to the pre-school need help to join in with the activities. This means that some children do not always become fully involved and engaged.
• Staff ensure that additional funding is targeted to support the specific needs of individual children. Staff work well with a range of agencies to ensure that all children have the support that they need. Consequently, all children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress from their individual starting points in all areas of their learning.
• Staff have high expectations for all children. They work effectively in partnerships with parents and regularly share information about children's development and activities. Parents report that their children are happy and look forward to their time at the pre-school. They comment very positively about the significant progress their children have made since attending.
• Staff place a strong focus on supporting children's literacy skills in the setting, such as through books, stories, rhymes and reading. Children enjoy looking at books with staff, who read with enthusiasm. They remain focused and engaged, talking about what they see, and predict what might happen next. However, the manager acknowledges that there is less emphasis placed on encouraging parents to extend this at home, to help promote children's love of reading even further.
• Staff ensure that children have a wide range of experiences to promote their health and well-being. For instance, children listen to stories and complete activities about making healthy food choices. They practise cleaning teeth and have a good understanding of why this is important.
• Children enjoy the time they spend outdoors. Staff provide good opportunities for children to develop an awareness of how to manage risks. For example, children stand on a platform and slide down a pole. Staff ensure that children are supervised during this activity and gently remind them that they must take turns. Children demonstrate very good physical skills as they climb and manoeuvre around obstacles.
• Leaders and managers are committed to supporting staff's ongoing professional development. The team of qualified staff complete regular mandatory training, to help keep their knowledge and skills up to date. Daily discussions enable staff to reflect on the activities provided to ensure children enjoy the time they spend at the pre-school.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to recognise when children who are new to the setting need extra emotional support to join in with activities
• continue to strengthen partnerships with parents by focusing more sharply on strategies to extend children's learning, including further developing children's existing love of reading at home.