Marion Scott Playgroup

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show that they feel secure and happy as they play. They gather for story time at the end of the morning and give rapt attention as a familiar, traditional tale is told. Staff skilfully manage the emotions that the story stimulates. Children know that the three little pigs are frightened and feel in danger from the wolf. Children also know that playgroup is a safe place and that the story will have a happy ending. The talking point after the story is about the pigs' kindness to the wolf. This helps children to understand the benefits of friendship and dialogue between neighbours.

Managers and staff create a calm, busy atmosphere in the playgroup. Well-established routines help children to understand the expectations for their conduct. At group time, they understand the visual symbols that tell them that it is time to listen and sit still. The routine promotes children's early reading and positive behaviour. Staff teach children to value the playgroup's resources and equipment. At tidy-up time, children join in with putting toys back where they are kept. Children learn that returning something to the right place means that they can find it next time that they want to use it.

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

• The experienced team create indoor and outdoor spaces that children enjoy learning in. At the heart of the curriculum there is a clear intention to encourage children to be active, self-motivated learners. One way that managers achieve this is by enabling staff to become confident, autonomous professionals. This helps to promote a sense of joint purposefulness in the playgroup.
• Managers work alongside staff. They encourage them to reflect on and improve their teaching. However, there are instances when managers focus too heavily on the resources and content of an activity and too little on the detail of staff's interactions with children. This slows staff's progress towards achieving the highest quality of teaching.
• Staff encourage and help children to follow their own lines of enquiry. This is demonstrated when children come back, again and again, to the well-equipped dolls' house. Children's deep concentration shows that they know they have time to develop complex ideas in their play. Staff observe children. This helps them to find out and extend what children know about the world.
• Children learn about the purposes of writing. When they arrive at playgroup children find their written name card, then sign in, using their own marks. This helps to lay the foundations for children's confident writing, once they gain sufficient strength and dexterity in their wrists and hands. Children see staff using the name cards to check who has been for snack. This helps them to learn that written words provide useful information.
• Children gain high levels of self-esteem. They draw pictures at the mark-making workstation and proudly display them on the wall. Staff support children to dress ready for outdoor play. Children work hard to fasten zips and buttons. They show that they feel a sense of achievement when staff praise their progress towards doing something by themselves.
• Staff act quickly when children's development gives cause for concern. They work in partnership with parents and carers and liaise with specialist professionals. Children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress.
• Staff conscientiously follow the playgroup's system for planning children's learning. However, on occasion, they do not use their excellent knowledge of individual children really effectively. This results in next steps for children's learning that do not focus closely enough on what they most need to learn. This means that children's communication and language development is sometimes not given the priority that promotes their swiftest possible progress.
• Staff follow routines that keep children safe. At snack time, staff know that they must stay with the children. They teach children to swallow their food before leaving the table. This helps to prevent incidents of choking. Staff know which children are allergic to particular foods and cater for them safely.
• Parents say that playgroup staff communicate well with them. They know that children have been learning about emotions and say that staff help them to continue this topic at home. Parents of children who speak English as an additional language say that children make rapid progress in learning to speak English. This promotes children's readiness to start school.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus more closely on the detail of staff's interactions with children, so that support for improving their teaching promotes the swiftest possible progress in children's learning
• help staff to set learning intentions that promote children's communication and language skills even more effectively during activities and interactions.