Little Bumbles Pre-school

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children have formed strong relationships with their key person, who takes the time to get to know them well. This helps all children to settle quickly and become emotionally secure. Children are happy and are confident to speak with visitors and share what they enjoy doing at pre-school. Staff place a strong focus on supporting children's behaviour and this helps them to understand expectations and boundaries. Children learn to manage conflict and are beginning to talk about their emotions. As a result, children form strong friendships with each other and join in games together. Children show an eagerness to play with resources available to them and engage well in the activities on offer. Staff interactions are strong and this enables children to make good progress.

Staff place an emphasis on conversations with children, modelling language and narrating their play. This develops their language and communication skills. Children enjoy going on a bug hunt with their friends using magnifying glasses. They enthusiastically share conversations with others about what bugs they have found. Children can freely access resources, such as blocks and small-world resources, that support their developing physical and imaginative skills.

Children become familiar with the school environment as staff make the most of the opportunities on offer from the school that they operate from. Older children benefit from the option of choosing a school lunch in the hall. Children carry their own trays and clear them away after meals. This supports children's independence and confidence towards their transition to school.

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

• Partnership with parents is strong and parents are very happy with the service. They speak warmly about the manager and staff team. They appreciate the friendly, welcoming, and supportive atmosphere of the setting. There is a good level of communication between staff and parents via daily conversations, parent's meetings and stay-and-play sessions. Parents believe their children's good progress is directly attributable to their attendance at the pre-school.
• The commitment of the manager is evident in the way they talk about their love for the pre-school. They have supervision processes in place for the staff team. Staff's well-being is carefully considered. However, the manager does not consistently target staff's professional development to help all staff enhance their knowledge and skills and raise the quality of teaching practice further.
• Staff encourage children to develop a love of books as they provide inviting reading areas inside and outside. Children delight in looking at books with other children or sharing a story with a member of staff. This supports children's developing literacy skills. The 'Book Start Bear' from the local authority has visited the children, further promoting the importance of literacy.
• Staff plan a range of experiences to support children's problem-solving skills, creativity and imagination. For example, staff interact well with children to develop their thoughts and ideas as they create a road, a bridge and a car wash with large blocks. Children take turns to put their car into the car wash and construct bridges for the track. Staff introduce counting and encourage children to think about how many more blocks they need. However, on occasions staff do not differentiate the experiences on offer to help the youngest children become more highly engaged and build even further on what children already know and can do.
• The manager organises external visitors to enhance children's prior learning experiences from home. They welcome regular visitors into the setting, including the police and local farmers. They take children on the bus and visit the beach. This enables children to learn about the world around them. Children have opportunities to learn about communities and families who may be different from their own. They take part in celebrations from other countries, such as Chinese New Year. Consequently, children show respect to one another and learn that they are all unique.
• Staff encourage children to talk about how they are feeling, and support them to manage their feelings when they encounter difficulties. For example, children tell each other if something makes them sad, and they explain to each other about taking turns. This helps all children to become confident and resilient.
• Children are encouraged to take measured risks in their play. They have vast opportunities to be physically active and they negotiate space well as they enjoy taking part in ball games. Staff support children to become independent. This results in children being confident with managing their self-care and hygiene routines.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus staff supervision and professional development to consistently enhance all staff's knowledge and skills to further embed the curriculum and improve teaching practice
• support staff to differentiate the experiences for all children, so that they are consistently highly engaged in their learning and provide further challenge to build on what children know and can do.