Little Lambs Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy their time at the pre-school. Staff place a strong focus on building children's personal, social and emotional well-being. Children benefit from the trusting and respectful relationships they develop with staff and their friends. Younger children and those who are new settle happily as staff offer a warm welcome to them. This helps children to feel safe, happy and well cared for. Staff support children to behave well. Where children need extra help with regulating their feelings and emotions, staff sensitively help them. Children listen to staff and respond well to them as they learn to wait patiently and take turns with toys and resources.

The curriculum is varied and enables all children to make good progress from their starting points. Staff create activities which ignite children's curiosity. For instance, children make mud pies. As they mix mud with water and add leaves, they become fully immersed in their imaginative play. Children enjoy plenty of opportunities to be physically active. For example, older children push themselves along on their ride-on motorbike and carefully cross the coloured balance beams. Staff recognise how physical play benefits children's understanding of healthy lifestyles and support this area of learning well.

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

• The manager is a strong leader. She has a clear and ambitious curriculum which is shared with her staff. The staff team, with the committee, works together to ensure children benefit from high-quality care and learning. Children are well prepared for their future learning, including their eventual transition to school.
• Staff benefit from regular supervisions with the manager to support them in their roles. Staff say that they feel valued, respected and their views are listened to. Their well-being is a focus for the manager. In turn, the well-being of the manager is supported by the committee. Recent changes to the staff team have been managed well. The manager recognises that there is further potential to focus staff professional development to refine staff teaching skills more precisely.
• Children develop positive attitudes to learning. They concentrate well and develop good listening and attention skills when activities interest them. For instance, staff help children guess the names of animals and the sounds each animal will make. They take turns to match pictures of animals on their board as they play together. Children learn how to take turns and wait for their friends to guess as they cooperate well.
• Staff know children well and understand how to support children's individual needs, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Funding is used to provide additional support for children. The management team recognises the needs of the children and how it can work closely with other professionals and parents to support them. This has a positive impact for children and the progress they make.
• Parents speak very positively about the pre-school. They say staff are kind and caring and take the time to get to know their children. Staff share a range of information with parents, including daily activities and children's overall progress. Staff suggest ideas for learning at home and parents comment on how positively this has been used to continue learning, particularly in relation to children's personal, social and emotional development.
• Teaching is good. Staff know what children need to learn next and follow the pre-school curriculum to target areas where children need most focus to help them achieve. However, at times, some staff miss opportunities to tailor learning to what they want children to learn next as they play alongside and with them. This means that some older and most-able children are not challenged to extend their learning further.
• Staff value the unique cultural backgrounds and experiences each child brings with them. They celebrate days that are special and provide opportunities for children to learn about cultures other than their own. For example, children learn about Rosh Hashanah as they make a shofar and enjoy tasting apples and honey. Children learn about these traditions as staff share stories about the celebration.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• target future professional development opportunities in order to help to refine and enhance staff teaching skills more precisely
• support all staff to extend and challenge children's learning as they join them at activities.