Micklands Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Leaders and staff strongly promote children's personal, social and emotional development. They ensure staff understand that supporting children's skills in this area, helps to lay foundations for their future learning. Children happily separate from their parents, smile warmly at the friendly staff and hang up their belongings on entering the pre-school. They show extremely positive attitudes to learning and readily engage with friends in cooperative play. For example, they actively play 'superheroes' and wear large pieces of material for capes. Children who are a little unsettled initially, are quickly comforted by nurturing staff. These children receive gentle reassurance and cuddles. Staff celebrate children's unique personalities, including those who show a witty sense of humour. Consequently, children develop a strong sense of belonging and emotional security.

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

• The outdoor provision, a standout feature of the pre-school, plays a pivotal part in supporting children's overall development. Children's confidence in their own abilities increases greatly as they engage in a wide range of physical challenges in the well-equipped garden. Staff provide them with ample opportunities to strengthen their physical well-being. For instance, children work together to arrange large pieces of apparatus and build a challenging obstacle course. This swiftly becomes a popular task, with children showing high levels of perseverance, balance and coordination. Children develop strength and stamina, as well as the will power to succeed, such as when they use climbing grips to pull themselves up a rope attached to tree branches.
• Leaders design a tailored and aspirational curriculum that reflects the needs and interests of all children. Some staff implement it effectively by skilfully adapting activities to help children progress. For example, they give children time and space to solve minor problems during their independent play, such as when they attempt to carry water in plant pots with holes. These staff members show a strong awareness of when to step in to extend children's thinking. However, not all staff confidently use the most effective teaching strategies to build on individual children's existing knowledge and skills. While leaders recognise these inconsistencies in staff practice, a sufficiently personalised and targeted professional development programme for them, is not yet firmly in place. Consequently, the quality of the curriculum delivery varies and some children do not always reach their full potential.
• Knowledgeable leaders strive for continual improvement. They clearly identify strengths and areas for development, such as aiming to further improve partnerships with parents to support children's continuity in learning. Leaders offer families opportunities to borrow resources, such as books to share at home to boost children's vocabulary. Although leaders greatly value collaborative working with parents, promoting children's understanding of healthy lifestyles in a more shared and consistent way, is not yet fully embedded.
• Enthusiastic staff read and sing with children throughout the day. They teach actions to songs and ask questions about events that happen in a story. Younger children sit on staff's laps and point to pictures in books, while older children lay on their tummies and carefully examine the pictures to retell the story to their friends. Staff introduce new words and remodel children's sentences, using the correct structure and pronunciation. As a result, children develop a real love for literacy and make good progress to become confident talkers.
• Children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) are supported very well. Leaders ensure all staff fully understand children's individual needs and their use of targeted interventions, such as 'bucket time' to develop children's attention and listening skills. Leaders and key persons work closely with external professionals to aid children's smooth transition on to their next stage in education. This effective support is underpinned by staff's skilful approach to meeting children's emotional and communication needs.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance all staff's teaching skills further by establishing effective and individualised coaching, training and mentoring programmes that helps them to support children to make the best possible progress
• strengthen partnership working with parents to further support and embed children's understanding of the importance of leading a healthy lifestyle.