Mini Mice Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children build strong bonds with staff and respond positively to their warm welcome. Staff get to know children well and clearly value each child as an individual. Staff provide a broad curriculum that focuses on supporting children's independence and helps them prepare well for school. Staff support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities very well. They provide an inclusive environment where all children make achievements and feel welcomed. Children play cooperatively and recognise the established boundaries. Older children act as good role models and readily help their younger friends, such as by finding some paper for them to draw their pictures on.

Staff plan activities around children's interests, such as a favourite book, and children enjoy learning through their play. For example, children have fun developing their understanding of the world and sensory skills as they explore the sand and water play. Staff ask children about the toy sea creatures hidden in the water, such as a shark, whale or starfish. Children know sharks don't have legs but that an octopus does, and they count these confidently. They dig in the sand and scoop this into a bucket, telling a visitor it is a 'strawberry sand porridge'.

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

• Leaders and staff work very well together as a team and have worked hard to make improvements since the last inspection. They have reflected well on their practice and use staff's skills more effectively. As a team, they continue to develop their professional knowledge. They have raised their understanding of how to help children recognise and learn ways to manage their emotions, such as when separating from parents on arrival.
• Staff help children learn about keeping fit, safe and healthy. For example, children like going on outings with staff to the beach. They meet the lifeguards and learn about water safety. Staff encourage children to try a range of fruits, such as figs, satsumas or mangoes. They have fun using up their energy as they jump up and down excitedly to a favourite song about monkeys falling off the bed. Younger children show great pride as they climb up the low climbing wall and then down and over the ladder frames independently.
• Children behave well. Staff keep clear, consistent expectations that help children feel secure, knowing what will happen next. They help children understand how to share toys and manage taking turns.
• Children develop their communication and language skills very well. Staff are skilled at encouraging children's discussions through their play. Children start to form long sentences to describe their ideas. For example, they say, 'We need to wear hats to keep the sun out of our eyes when it's hot.' Children tell a visitor that the shaving foam feels 'soft' and that the play dough is 'squidgy'. They excitedly anticipate what happens next as they join in with a favourite song about a turtle and sing 'bubble, bubble, bubble and pop!'
• Staff monitor children's progress and identify their next steps of development. They plan a good variety of motivating activities that help children to achieve in their play. For example, children develop their imaginations and their physical coordination and fine motor skills well. They concentrate well, squeezing and rolling play dough, and use different tools, such as a pastry wheel, to make patterns and shapes for their creations. Children say, 'Here is a big heart shape to go on the chocolate pizza we have made.' However, staff do not always organise some group activities, such as circle time, to meet children's differing concentration levels and engage them fully in the activity.
• Staff form good partnerships with parents and keep them well informed of their children's achievements each day. Parents speak highly of staff, saying they are 'amazing' and very supportive to their families. They comment that their children settle in pre-school very happily and make good progress from when they start.
• Staff encourage children's early counting skills well overall. For example, children sort and match the colourful toy bears and count how many are in each group. They sing a favourite song about the 'green and speckled frogs that jump off a speckled log' and count how many frogs are left. Children gain confidence with counting and begin to instantly recognise how many objects are in a group, but staff do not always build on these skills to help them see how the written number links to quantity.
• Children enjoy a wide range of exciting experiences that help to build on their cultural capital. For example, staff take children to the library to support their enjoyment of stories, or to the theatre to see a Christmas show. They go on visits to a local school and share activities with the children there. This helps children develop the life skills that will prepare them for their future learning.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review and improve the organisation of group activities, such as circle times, to support all children's concentration levels and engage them in learning consistently well
• make more use of opportunities to help children learn about linking written numbers and quantity to develop their early mathematical awareness even further.