Peapod Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children flourish in this welcoming and nurturing pre-school. They have built strong bonds with their key workers, who are very attentive to their needs. This has a positive impact on their emotional well-being, and helps to ensure that they feel safe and secure. Children know and follow the routine in the pre-school well. They instinctively know to wash their hands when they come in each morning and hang their belongings on their pegs. Children are becoming increasingly independent. They confidently dress themselves, self-serve their snack and tidy up their toys when they have finished playing.

Children develop a positive attitude to their learning. The well-organised environment promotes their natural curiosity and eagerness to learn. Children have high levels of confidence in their abilities and in social situations. They eagerly interact with staff, their peers and visitors, and enjoy discussing their abilities and achievements. Staff foster a love of books among children. They eagerly gather around staff, who read with enthusiasm and capture the children's interest. Children can complete endings to stories and shout out familiar phrases with excitement. They know how to handle books with care, and gently turn the pages in the story. This helps to support children's early literacy skills.

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

• Staff deliver an ambitious curriculum for children, which is planned around their individual needs. Activities are interesting and engage children well. For example, children enjoy drawing story books and enthusiastically discuss with staff what each picture means. Staff show a deep understanding of their key children's level of development, and plan activities that help to build on what children know and can do.
• Children are respectful, showing care and consideration towards their friends and adults. Staff praise children positively for their efforts, achievements and positive behaviours. This helps to promote children's self-esteem and confidence effectively. However, although staff have put routines and boundaries in place, this is not fully implemented throughout the day. For example, children are not always reminded about how to sit and listen during group time, and get easily distracted.
• Staff support children in leading a healthy lifestyle and to understand the importance of good oral health. They enjoy regular physical play and have ample opportunities to play outside each day. For instance, children enjoy riding on bikes and climbing trees in the well-resourced garden. Staff deliver consistent messages to help children understand how they can make healthy choices.
• Children's communication and language is positively encouraged throughout the setting. Staff spend a lot of time talking to children, introducing new words and creating a language-rich environment. They help to extend children's vocabulary by engaging in small group activities to support children's individual needs. Children recognise their name and familiar letter sounds. For example, children use keyboards to identify the letters in their name.
• The management team and staff develop and maintain strong partnerships with parents. They use many initiatives to engage parents, including home-learning ideas, events and celebrations. Parents comment that staff are 'lovely and kind' and that they 'keep them well informed about where their children are within their development'. They discuss how their children have 'blossomed and grown in confidence' and 'make excellent progress in their learning'.
• Staff effectively support children and families with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The special educational needs coordinator works closely with parents and other professionals to identify, plan and coordinate support for them. Additional funding is used appropriately by the management team to meet the needs of individual children.
• The management team is ambitious and passionate about providing high-quality care and education. They support children and families and make positive changes to improve outcomes for all. Managers support staff's ongoing training well. For instance, recent sign language training has improved staff's knowledge of how to support children's language and communication skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• review and strengthen routines to ensure children are fully supported to understand behaviour expectations and to help them to sustain their concentration levels more effectively.