Little Me Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

All staff put children at the heart of everything they do. They create a home-from-home setting where children feel extremely safe and comfortable. Children arrive eager to start their busy day. They are greeted warmly by cheerful staff, who build affectionate bonds with them. Staff are especially sensitive to children's overall well-being and personal situations. Children readily approach them for cuddles and reassurance when needed.

Leaders design a sequenced and varied curriculum that focuses on supporting children's emotional well-being and communication skills. Staff model good qualities that support children to become independent, confident and able to make friends. They thoughtfully develop children's key language skills and plan activities that build effectively on their interests. Staff work hard to ensure all children's self-worth is enhanced to enable them to thrive in their next stage of learning. Children make good progress from their starting points.

Staff have appropriate expectations for behaviour based on children's ages and stages of development. Children make independent choices of what and who they want to play with. Staff enthusiastically engage with children. Even the youngest children readily invite staff into their play and keenly share what they are doing. Staff generously praise children's efforts and achievements. This helps to enhance their self-esteem and enjoyment.

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

• Staff actively listen to children and interact with kindness and compassion. They sit at their level and model play with them. Staff develop children's communication and language skills through regularly repeating single words and descriptive ones. For example, they describe ice cream as 'delicious' and 'yummy' as children pretend to eat them. Story sessions, in particular, help children learn to listen attentively and apply words they hear. Babies impressively turn pages and lift flaps in books to reveal a variety of pictures. Toddlers connect words in nursery rhymes to the actions. Older children talk passionately about topics that interest them, such as dinosaurs. They confidently teach staff some unusual names of these prehistoric creatures. In this way, children become competent communicators.
• On the whole, staff have a good understanding of how children learn and develop. The quality of teaching is generally effective in delivering the educational programmes and ensuring children's progress. However, leaders have not fully considered the most effective arrangements to identify and address minor weaknesses in staff's teaching skills. For instance, at times, staff interrupt children's flow and thought processes when they are exploring. They do not always allow children the space and time to build their resilience to follow a task through.
• Staff know children well and provide a calm and nurturing learning environment. They quickly identify children who may need additional support, such as noticing signs of speech delay. Staff gather information from parents and use their observations of children to provide bespoke settling-in sessions. This helps children to settle into nursery life.
• Children are enthusiastic and motivated learners. They become engrossed in activities during their spontaneous play, which helps to deepen their interests and build new ones. Staff recognise the benefit of older children acting as good role models and helping the younger ones. In this way, children begin to play harmoniously together. This is illustrated when older children spend quality time in the mark-making area, drawing their favourite things, and the younger ones keenly follow suit. They try hard to hold writing equipment correctly and make more controlled marks.
• Partnerships with parents are strong and trusted overall. Parents value the high levels of care and consideration staff offer their children. However, the two-way sharing of information about children's ongoing development is not as well established with all parents. This means that staff and some of these parents do not have a full picture of their children's capabilities. Consequently, children's continuity in their learning is not always assured.
• Children benefit from real-life experiences that place them in the heart of the local community. For example, staff regularly accompany children on walks to the local village. Children learn about the different shops and what they sell, as well as meeting people from different walks of life. Staff point out objects of interest on their walks, which helps to broaden children's understanding of the world. Parents are often amazed at how their children's stamina to walk has improved as a result.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• monitor staff's practice more robustly to identify any areas of their existing practice that need improving and support them to achieve improvements
• enhance partnerships with all parents to improve the two-way flow of information about children's learning and development.