Playdays Preschool 2

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children show that they are extremely happy and secure in this highly stimulating, nurturing environment. They show great curiosity and interest in the wide range of interesting and challenging activities available to them. Staff are incredibly positive role models. They are superb at following children's lead based on their interests.

Staff have extremely high expectations for children's learning and behaviour. As a result, children show very positive attitudes towards their learning and behave extremely well. Children relish exploring a range of exciting sensory activities. For instance, they show deep concentration as they practise cutting spaghetti. This helps to develop their fine motor skills and imaginations. Children also show delight in exploring real pumpkins. Staff skilfully extend their language skills as they as they ask them how it feels and introduce new words, such as 'pulp'.

Children's imagination is captured brilliantly as they explore junk-modelling resources. They have fun creating telescopes and recalling phrases from favourite stories. Children's mathematical knowledge is well challenged, as they experiment with weighing scales. As children play, staff encourage them to make predictions and introduce a wealth of mathematical language, such as 'heavy', 'light' and 'even'. Children evidently enjoy attending and are flourishing at the setting.

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

• The setting is led by an exceptionally driven and ambitious leader. She is passionate about supporting each individual child to reach their full potential. Along with her dedicated team, they strive to deliver a broad curriculum, which gives children a rich set of experiences to support their personal development and learning.
• Staff know children extremely well. There are excellent systems in place to gain an understanding of children's interests, needs and current stage of development when they join. Staff then use this information to meticulously review children's development, and plan purposeful next steps to support their learning. Children make rapid progress and quickly gain new knowledge and skills.
• There is a strong focus on supporting children's home learning. For instance, staff send home fun activity bags to support children's, mathematics, literacy and fine-motor skills. Children frequently borrow bikes and scooters in order to develop their gross motor skills when they are away from the setting.
• Leaders and staff have extremely high levels of integrity for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They work in close partnership with parents and other professionals to meet children's individual needs and to support their future learning.
• Children who speak English as an additional language receive excellent support to encourage their communication skills. They learn and play in a highly language-rich environment. Staff also use visual aids and familiar words in children's home languages to help them understand. Furthermore, staff use translation tools to help communicate with parents in an effective way.
• Supporting children to understand about their similarities and differences is deeply embedded across the setting. For instance, parents frequently come in to celebrate festivals and discuss their home cultures. They also read stories, carry out cooking activities and craft projects to deepen children's awareness of diversity.
• There is strong emphasis on teaching children to make healthy lifestyle choices. For instance, children benefit from weekly active sessions led by a sports coach. Staff also support children to brush their teeth at the setting and sing songs to make this experience fun. Furthermore, staff send home information about the importance of healthy eating. This helps to support children's overall health.
• Partnerships with parents are superb. Staff ensure that parents learn about the local services that they can use. For example, they support parents to access workshops, resources and programmes through local charities that are dedicated to improving outcomes for families. Parents express extremely high levels of satisfaction with the care and education their children receive. Parents state that staff are exceptionally helpful and supportive. They also discuss how they can see vast improvement in their children's development.
• Staff are highly reflective and their commitment to professional development is impressive. Staff frequently engage in relevant training to enhance their practice and to offer tailored support to children and families.