Newton Park Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive and flourish in this friendly pre-school setting. Kind and nurturing staff invest time and effort in getting to know new children and families at the beginning of the academic year. Settling-in procedures are gradual and plenty of time is spent getting to know each other. Children respond very well to these robust and flexible admission systems. All children, including those who have only attended for a short time, are happy, settled and content. Children of all ages behave well. They are helpful and polite. Children help to keep the pre-school tidy, returning toys to baskets after playing. They look after their belongings and are respectful of the space. Staff use a number of simple and effective techniques to promote positive behaviour. For instance, they offer children praise and clap to celebrate children's achievements. This animated and continual encouragement helps to promote positive behaviour and self-esteem.

Children are free to select where they wish to play and choose toys to ignite their curiosity. Children make decisions to play indoors or outside and move around the play space with purpose and engagement. Children's self-chosen play helps to foster their independence. Staff join in children's games and their participation in play is used effectively to extend children's learning. For instance, staff encourage children to mix different paint, predicting how the colours will change when mixed. This helps to extend children's critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Children enjoy a 'physical hour' every day where they are encouraged to practice new physical skills. Children run and chase bubbles, jumping to reach up high. They balance on wooden blocks, carefully walking along slopes. This requires physical precision and coordination. An external sports coach visits the setting weekly to enhance the physical curriculum even more. Children enjoy books. They benefit from a lending library, enabling them to continue their enjoyment of reading at home. Children begin to learn that print carries meaning and story time successfully helps to extend children's early language skills. This is a vibrant, well-organised and fun setting, in turn, children are happy and engaged in their learning.

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

• Collectively staff and leaders have made significant improvements to address weaknesses identified at the last inspection. The role of the key worker has been revised and positive relationships are now a successful cornerstone to children's emotional well-being. The manager routinely monitors the quality of staff interactions and provides quick feedback on their practice. The quality of this provision is good and there is a real thirst amongst the staff and leaders to continue to improve.
• Staff, leaders and committee members fully understand their responsibility to keep children safe. They understand how to identify and respond to concerns about children's welfare should these arise. A detailed policy is understood by all staff who have a collective ownership of safeguarding.
• Staff frequently observe children and make use of this knowledge to provide children with activities linked to their interests and development stage. The curriculum is varied and engaging, covering all areas of development. However, there are fewer opportunities for children to extend their counting and understanding of number sequences as they play.
• The setting benefits from a very confident staff team who support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities extremely well. They recognise the importance of working with other professional to benefit children.
• Children are well prepared to move on to school when the time eventually comes. They are independent and have key skills in readiness for school. For instance, children can take care of their personal care needs, ask for help when needed and confidently assert their opinions. Links with local primary schools are established which helps children to make a smooth transition to school.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Parents are actively involved in the setting. For instance, they are regularly invited into the setting for 'stay and play' sessions. Parents praise the staff for their open communication and the friendly, warm atmosphere they experience.
• Children grow a range of fruit and vegetables and learn where their food comes from in practical hands-on ways. They harvest a successful crop of strawberries, enjoying new flavours and developing a good attitude towards healthy eating.
• Children benefit from quality teaching, and adult interactions are focused on children's next steps to help them narrow gaps in their learning. However, sometimes, during group activities, staff do not share their attention or time equally among all children. As such, some children lose interest during group tasks and move away to play elsewhere.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• extend children's counting and numeracy skills as they play to help them make even more progress in their mathematics development
• improve staff awareness of sharing their time and attention among all children during group activities so everyone benefits from the high quality teaching provided.