Rainbows Preschool

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children happily arrive to an enthusiastic welcome from staff and their friends. They are confident and settle quickly. Children enjoy exploring the activities on offer. They move freely between the indoor and outdoor environments. Outside, they learn how to operate a pump to get water and fill containers before carefully transferring water to the sandpit or into the water tray. Children delight in blowing soapy bubbles. They twirl the large wands around to produce lots of bubbles, which float about in the air. Children giggle as they try to catch the bubbles in their hands and on the wand.

Children behave well. They choose and lead their own play, engaging well with their friends and staff. Activities ignite children's curiosity and hold their interest for long periods. For example, children enjoy messy play in a tray full of coloured pasta and model dinosaurs. Staff pour in some breakfast cereal for added texture, which results in children having additional enjoyable opportunities to taste the cereal while they play. Children are confident communicators and share their thoughts and ideas with staff. For example, children inform staff that the carrots in the garden need watering and bring the watering can inside to fill it up with water.

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

• The manager, who is also the provider, has worked hard with her team to raise the quality of teaching and meet the actions set at the last inspection. Educational programmes are ambitious, and the range of resources has been improved to engage and motivate children to learn. Staff receive regular supervision meetings to help support their individual professional development and practice. This helps to identify additional training or to discuss any concerns they may have.
• Children make good progress in relation to their individual starting points. Staff gather information from parents about what children enjoy doing at home. This detail helps staff to plan for what children need to learn next. Regular observations enable staff to check that children are making good levels of progress and identify any emerging gaps in learning. Consequently, children develop a good range of key skills to be ready for the next stage in their learning.
• Staff respond promptly to children's requests. For example, when a group of children ask to make play dough, staff follow their spontaneity and provide suitable resources. Staff ask children what colour dough they would like to make. Children eagerly ask for 'rainbow colours', which results in bottles of brightly coloured paint appearing. Staff encourage children to make the dough themselves, adding in flour, oil and water. Children tip in glitter and paint, which they mix together. They proudly take their dough to show and share with their friends. However, staff do not always organise spontaneous activities effectively enough to manage children's eagerness and expectations, particularly when many children decide they want to join in.
• Children enjoy exploring the wide range of activities that staff provide. However, at times, staff overlook opportunities to help children understand mathematical concepts and use numbers in their play. For example, while children blow bubbles, staff do not build on this fascination to help them think about and describe the different sizes and numbers of bubbles blown.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Parents receive daily feedback when they collect their children. This helps them to support children further at home. Staff encourage parents to share what their children like doing at home and any new interests. They work closely with parents to help children close any gaps in their learning. Staff provide parents with home packs that they can do with their children in their own time.
• Links with local school teachers work well to help children move confidently on to the next stage of their learning. Staff arrange activities, such as making lolly stick people, to enable children to become familiar with the colour of their uniform. Children stick the correct coloured top and skirt or trousers to the lolly stick and add their hair colour. They proudly show staff and visitors their mini versions of themselves.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on staff's increasing confidence to encourage and support children to recognise and use simple mathematical concepts in their play
• develop the organisation of spontaneous activities further to manage children's eagerness and expectations better.