New Road Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff greet children warmly on arrival. The cheerful and relaxed atmosphere ensures that children feel comfortable and eager to explore the wide range of activities. Children show deep concentration and experiment to find the best way to position small toy bricks to construct a strong wall. Staff organise visits from a school crossing patrol officer and a veterinary nurse to enrich children's experiences of the wider community. Children are confident and show that they feel secure as they speak with the inspector and invite her to join their play. Staff consistently praise children for their achievements. This boosts children's self-esteem, giving them a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Staff support children's communication skills by providing a language-rich environment. They sing children's favourite action songs with immense enthusiasm and bring the songs to life with puppets. This motivates children to join in with the words and actions and introduces them to simple mathematical concepts, such as subtraction. Staff sensitively support children's correct pronunciation of words. Staff support children to have a strong sense of belonging and develop their understanding of similarities and differences. Children enjoy sharing and talking about their own and others' extended family and pets from photos that are displayed on the large photo board.

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

• Staff work closely with parents and other professionals to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They implement personalised support plans and individual strategies to help children reach their full potential. Staff's good knowledge of each child ensures that they use additional funding effectively to offer children rich opportunities that support their development.
• Staff implement a varied and sequenced curriculum that focuses on broadening children's experiences and enables them to develop essential key life skills in readiness for their next stage in learning. Children engage in activities that reflect their interests. However, staff do not consistently provide most-able children with a high level of challenge to develop a deeper level of learning. Regular observations and assessments of children's achievements identify any gaps in children's progress that are swiftly addressed.
• Staff ensure children follow a good hygiene routine and develop their awareness of a healthy lifestyle. Children know to wash their hands before serving themselves a nutritious snack, and staff engage in meaningful discussions with children about the importance of regularly brushing their teeth. Staff regularly remind children to drink water so that they remain hydrated during warm weather. Children enjoy creating superhero characters inspired by one of their favourite books, 'Supertato'. They use real vegetables, such as carrots and potatoes, to represent the characters. This stimulates their imagination as they recall and act out scenes from the story. This helps children to associate vegetables with positive traits, making them more appealing to eat.
• Leaders and staff share weekly updates with parents that highlight children's achievements and an overview of the intentions of activities they provide. Termly reports inform parents about their children's good progress and outline their current next steps in learning. However, parents are not always made aware when these next steps change during the term, and they are not provided with ideas to extend these at home to fully support children's continuity in learning. Parents describe staff as 'nurturing' and comment that their children are excited to attend and speak very fondly about the staff.
• Children behave well and show that they are familiar with the expectations in place. For instance, they know to line up sensibly and wait for their name to be called before walking indoors. They show kind relationships towards each other, sharing resources and listening to each other's ideas. Staff support children to understand how they are feeling and why. The effective use of soft toys linked to books that explore emotions serves as a valuable resource for children to express their emotions appropriately.
• Leaders are highly motivated and are committed to staff's continuous professional development. They act as good role models and share new knowledge and skills with all staff to support a consistent approach. Recent training has had a positive impact on promoting mathematical skills within a wider range of activities. Staff receive practical supervision that supports them to identify training needs and continue to raise the quality of their practice. Leaders prioritise staff well-being. Staff comment how they feel valued members of the team.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop the curriculum further to include even more challenge for the most able children
• provide parents with precise information about their children's current next steps in learning and ideas to extend learning at home.