Lilly Brook Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and thrive in this stimulating and welcoming environment. Staff are friendly. Positive relationships between staff and children help them feel valued. Staff are attentive to the needs of all the children they care for. Children behave well. Staff have high expectations of children's behaviour. They show respect and listen to what children say. They provide gentle reminders and explanations to help children learn about rules and boundaries. For example, children eagerly find the sand timers to support them to share resources, such as the balance bikes. Children show respect for others, encouraging their friends to join in, and take turns.

Children are enthusiastic and active learners. They are eager to explore resources around them and to find out how things work. For example, children keenly develop their hand to eye coordination as they practise pouring water into different sized pots and tubes. Children build strong friendships and look forward to playing with one another. Staff are caring and praise children as they learn new knowledge and skills. Children have plenty of opportunities to develop their language and learn new words. They listen to stories and sing familiar songs. This means all children are making good progress in their language development.

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

• Children learn from a planned and sequenced curriculum with a strong focus on communication and language development. Staff plan activities to support children's learning well in this area. The pre-school curriculum focuses well on communication and language skills. For example, staff provide opportunities to extend children's vocabulary and they comment on children's play and learning. Children confidently use the new words they have learned, such as 'puncture'. Younger children enjoy focus rhyme time as they learn a selection of nursery rhymes. Children are confident communicators. Nevertheless, not all staff are clear about the curriculum aims.
• Support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is good. The special educational needs coordinator works closely with external agencies to make sure that individual needs are identified, and targeted support plans are swiftly put in place. She provides ongoing support for parents, making sure that they understand their children's needs and how to support their development at home. The manager uses additional funding to adapt the environment and purchase resources and training for staff that directly meet children's individual needs.
• The manager ensures all staff complete a thorough induction programme, which means staff know the policies and procedures at the pre-school. Staff feel well supported by the manager and receive regular feedback on their role. The manager is a good role model for staff and works alongside them to provide good quality learning opportunities for the children.
• Staff are good roles models and are keen to engage in children's play. However, at times staff do not use effective questioning techniques to encourage children to think, problem solve and share their own ideas, to enhance and challenge their learning further.
• The importance of healthy lifestyles is promoted by all staff. Children have many opportunities to be physically active. They ride bikes, climb steps to slides and play ball games outside. Staff talk to the children about healthy foods and the importance of washing their hands before snack and mealtimes. For instance, children eagerly exchange their ticket after they wash their hands for their snack. Children are beginning to understand how to make healthy choices.
• Parents feel involved in children's care and education at the pre-school. Staff share daily activities with parents through the 'spaces' app, so that they can share their child's pre-school experience and support learning at home. Staff share information about children's care routines, such as sleep times. This helps everyone to work together to promote children's well-being.
• The manager is ambitious for everyone's achievement. She encourages staff to undertake accredited and other training. For example, staff complete training to support children's language skills that extends their knowledge. This helps them to continuously improve the quality of play and interactions to enhance children's language development even further.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• explore ways to build on the good quality teaching to bring it to a consistently high level, and extend staff's understanding of what they intend children to learn
• review staff's use of questioning technics to encourage children to share ideas and challenge their thinking skills.