Pippins Pre-school Ltd.

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The management and staff team create a welcoming environment, where children are happy, safe and well cared for. Staff get to know children and their families well. They find out about the unique needs of children to help them tailor care that supports children to move to the pre-school with confidence. Children develop good social skills. Staff place a strong focus on helping children learn to play with their friends cooperatively. Children learn how to take turns with favourite toys and gain a good understanding of kindness and respect for each other. Children behave well. Children have a strong sense of belonging. They develop good levels of independence and are well prepared for their eventual move on to school

Staff are ambitious for children. They plan and provide a curriculum that supports children's individual learning. Children demonstrate that they are eager to play and that they enjoy the activities on offer. For instance, children practise balancing on 'monster feet' as they take steps, proudly sharing their new skills with staff and their friends. Leaders recognise when some children, including children in receipt of additional funding and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), need extra help to catch up with their peers. They work closely with parents and professionals to ensure that children with SEND receive the support they need. Leaders make good use of additional funding to meet the needs of the children who receive it.

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

• Leaders and staff work well together. The leaders are highly qualified and have a good knowledge and understanding of early childhood development. There have been recent changes to the staff team and new members say that they feel well supported in their roles. Staff practice is continuously improving as they are supported to learn more about how children learn and develop. Leaders deliver relevant training, coaching and guidance to support staff's professional development. Overall, teaching is good. However, at times, some staff do not adapt their teaching to challenge and extend older and most able children's thinking to maximise their learning.
• Leaders and staff prioritise children's communication and language development. Where some children start behind in their language skills, staff plan and tailor learning to help children to catch up quickly. Staff create a language-rich environment. They engage children in conversations where they model language and help children to understand and pronounce new words. For instance, staff teach children about different types of dinosaurs and their habitats. Staff sound out more complex names of dinosaurs, breaking these down for children to hear and repeat back confidently. All children make good progress in their communication skills from their starting points.
• Children are highly independent. Staff encourage and support children to learn how to manage a wide variety of self-care tasks for themselves from the outset. For instance, younger children learn how to fasten and unfasten coats as they move from indoors to outdoors. At mealtimes, older children learn how to use cutlery to cut up foods and feed themselves. Younger children learn how to accurately serve themselves drinks, pouring liquids with ease. Staff recognise and respond when children need support, giving them time to practise and successfully master their growing independence.
• Children develop good physical skills. Staff place a strong focus on this area of children's development as part of their curriculum. Children gain good control, balance and coordination of their large and small muscle skills during activities staff plan and provide for them. For instance, older children learn how to balance their bodies as they roll down small inclines on bicycles and tricycles. Children become very confident in their own abilities as staff encourage them to have a go and to keep on trying. This helps to build children's emotional resilience and a belief that they can achieve goals that they set themselves.
• Parents speak very highly of the care their children receive. Leaders get to know the children and their families extremely well. Staff share children's daily activities, progress and special achievements with parents to celebrate children's success. Where children have additional support in place, staff work closely with other professionals to establish strong partnership working to promote consistency for children's care and learning. However, staff are yet to embed a two-way flow of information with all parents, doing which would help them to have a full range of information about children and support parents to continue their child's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop staff's knowledge of how to identify and use opportunities to challenge and extend children's learning as they play
• provide parents with more specific information about children's individual next steps to help them extend learning at home.