Playbox St. Johns Pre-School Nursery

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive happy and confidently leave their parents and carers at the door. Leaders have good procedures in place to support new starters at the pre-school. Parents complete forms and share information about their children's care needs during settling-in visits. Children seek out their friends and quickly become engaged in a variety of planned activities. Staff are kind and nurturing in their interactions. This helps children feel safe and secure.

Staff encourage children to use their imagination during play. Children use a breadth of language to describe the things they are doing in their play. Staff interactions are purposeful. For instance, children dress up and pretend to be doctors and nurses. Staff introduce new ideas and language, such as 'stethoscope' and 'thermometer'. They role model with the children how to use the different resources. Children quickly follow their lead, checking the temperatures of their teddy bears. This helps children understand about their bodies and the people who help us.

Staff have high expectations of children's behaviour. They have developed the routines of the pre-school to meet the needs of the children. For example, leaders have spilt some parts of the day, such as mealtimes, into groups of older and younger children. This allows younger children to relax and take time eating their lunch, while staff promote good manners.

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

• Staff plan opportunities for children to be creative and develop their fine motor skills. For example, children create Christmas trees using pegs and pom-poms. They concentrate intently as they squeeze the peg and dip the pom-poms in paint, adding different colours to their pictures. This helps to develop the small muscles in their hands for later writing.
• Staff promote children's health well. They provide guidance for parents to help them understand what makes a healthy packed lunch. Children have ample opportunities to exercise, both indoors and outdoors, which promotes their good health and well-being.
• Overall, staff support children's independence. Staff encourage children to use the bathroom and wash their hands independently. However, at times, staff are too quick to complete simple tasks for children that they could try for themselves, such as wiping their own nose or putting on their coats to play outside. This means children do not have consistent opportunities to practise their independence skills.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Staff regularly share information with parents about their children's development through daily discussions and an online platform. Parents comment on the book-lending library and how this has helped them to continue their children's love of stories at home.
• Staff provide very good support for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They focus strongly on meeting their individual needs. Staff work closely with other professionals and parents to create and use plans that help children with SEND to progress in their development.
• Overall, teaching is good. Staff have a clear understanding of the nursery curriculum. They place a high priority on developing children's communication skills. For example, older children speak with confidence as they create a 'space planet' from play dough. However, at times, during some planned activities, the learning intent is too advanced for some of the younger children. Leaders have introduced more specific feedback for staff to help support their practice, although this is not yet fully embedded. This means teaching is variable across the pre-school.
• Staff help children to play harmoniously together. They encourage children to talk to each other and take turns with the resources. This promotes their positive attitudes to learning.
• Leaders implement a programme of supervision and training to help develop the practice and knowledge of staff. However, they recognise the need to extend and embed the current strategies so that teaching is consistent across the pre-school. This will help staff develop their skills and practice further.
• The provider has failed to notify Ofsted of a change in managers. Leaders acknowledge this was an oversight and they are now fully aware of their duty to notify Ofsted in the future. This oversight does not have any impact on children's safety.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to recognise when they can encourage children to develop their independence skills further
• strengthen the coaching and mentoring for staff to further develop their skills and enhance the implementation of the curriculum.