Marhamchurch Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Marhamchurch Pre School is a delightful place for children to go to play and learn. Enthusiastic and dedicated staff design and implement a well-sequenced curriculum that centres around each individual child. There is a wide range of high-quality resources, including everyday objects and recyclable items. Children's natural curiosity and eagerness to explore and create is successfully enhanced. Recent changes to the building's interior, such as neutral colours, fairy lights and draped fabrics, create a tranquil and welcoming environment where children show they feel secure and valued.

Children thoroughly enjoy their weekly visits to a private woodland environment. They develop confidence and self-esteem through exciting hands-on learning. For example, they watch with fascination as a worm wriggles on their hand and keenly talk about how it feels. Children demonstrate they know why and how to replace the worm safely in the soil, away from the digging area but not too far from its home. Children play happily with their friends and learn how to share resources and wait their turn. Staff reinforce their high expectations. For example, staff support children to understand why they must return to the seated circle in the woodland when they hear a hoot sound made by the model owl blown by staff. Children behave extremely well and express consistently positive attitudes to their play and learning.

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

• The pre-school manager provides strong leadership. She promotes a positive ethos and culture. This helps staff to work exceptionally well together. Staff are reflective and enthusiastically share ideas about how to make further improvements in their curriculum.
• Staff place a high focus on developing children's communication and language skills. For example, specially selected fiction and non-fiction books are placed throughout the environment. This encourages children to pick up a counting book placed in the mud kitchen. They listen attentively to a rhyme about caterpillars and join in as staff point to text and pictures. During a planned activity staff skilfully question, give clues and encourage children to correctly identify different objects hidden inside a bag. There is great excitement and praise as children exclaim their ideas. Children make excellent progress.
• The committee provides very good support to staff. There is a high commitment to provide an inclusive community provision. There is a compelling 'can do' attitude.
• Children have lots of fun with mathematics. For example, they keenly help a monkey hand puppet, held by a staff member, count number cards to 10. There is lots of laughter when the 'monkey' is wrong. Children quickly recognise which card is missing and happily look for it. The activity is further extended for older children who show increased skill to recognise more than one card is missing. They listen to clues to help them successfully find the hidden cards. Children show great pride in their achievements.
• The support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities is exceptional. There are highly effective professional links with other agencies and schools. Staff designated to be responsible for coordinating provision go over and above to ensure children and their families receive the right assistance they need to achieve the best possible outcomes.
• Children are deeply engaged in their work and play and sustain high levels of concentration. For example, during a music and movement activity, staff show children how to play a guiro by tapping or scraping it. Staff encourage children to sing in a high pitch when they tap the guiro above their heads and to sing in a low voice when they tap it close to their feet. Children listen to staff as they sing a musical scale. Children excitedly raise and lower their coloured scarf when they hear each successive note.
• Partnerships with parents are very effective. A record of each child's progress is shared through a secure online platform. Staff provide a wide range of books and activity packs to enable children to play and learn with their families at home. Parents speak highly of the pre-school, particularly about the warm, affectionate relationships between staff and children and the experiences provided to inspire children's awe and wonder of the world in which they live.