Rascals Childcare Limited

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thrive in the welcoming and supportive environment. They explore the available resources, chatting confidently to each other and staff. Children behave well and have a positive attitude to learning new skills. They listen to stories quietly, waiting with anticipation to find out what happens next in the book. Toddlers use paintbrushes and balls to explore and make marks in sensory activities such as sand play. Pre-school children experience interest and fascination when they spot a spider and its web in the sandpit. Staff help children to learn to be gentle with the spider, carefully finding it a new home somewhere more suitable. Lots of related language helps children to consider the way the spider moves and how they build their webs.

Overall, children make good levels of progress from their starting points. Staff have high expectations for children's learning. They continually support and encourage children's achievements and progress. Pre-school children are confident communicators. They respond to staff's questions, using increasingly complex sentences. Children quickly pick up new words from their conversations with staff, that they repeat and use in context. Toddlers join in enthusiastically with nursery rhymes and songs. They follow staff's actions, clapping their hands and rolling their arms to 'Wind the Bobbin Up'.

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

• The provider and manager, along with the staff team, have worked hard to successfully meet all the actions and recommendations set at the last inspection. Children benefit from close relationships with their key person. This helps to support children's emotional well-being and confidence. Children understand and follow the daily routines, finding familiarity in knowing what will happen next.
• Staff know what children need to learn next and their interests. They use this information to plan and sequence a curriculum that challenges and helps children to develop skills for their future. This is successfully implemented for children in the pre-school. However, staff working with the toddlers do not consistently provide a broad curriculum that encompasses all aspects of their learning. For example, toddlers are not fully supported to learn to use their imaginative skills, or explore the wider world, outside.
• The manager continues to undertake special educational needs training to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff know children's needs, stages of development and the individual ways in which they communicate. This enables staff to tailor learning experiences to ensure children make the best possible progress. The manager has built partnerships with other professionals to enable additional guidance and help to be sought when required.
• Staff teach children a range of skills that they will need when they start school, such as learning to recognise their names and taking care of their bags and coats. Staff share information about children's progress and achievements with local school teachers. They encourage teachers to visit the children in the nursery so that they can meet them prior to starting school. This helps to provide children with confidence and continuity as they move on to the next stage in their education.
• Staff successfully keep parents aware of their children's achievements and their next steps. However, some information, such as the cooked meals provided for children, and some policies and procedures, particularly relating to children's care and health, are not regularly shared with parents. In addition, links with staff at other settings that children attend are not fully explored to enable regular information sharing. This hinders the continuity between settings.
• The quality of teaching is good. Ongoing supervisions and appraisals help staff to identify areas of their practice to develop and their strengths. Training and regular meetings enable staff to learn new skills and refresh their professional development. Staff are keen to attend training to help them communicate better with children, such as by using sign language.
• Pre-school children enjoy mark making. They use clipboards, paper and pen as they search the garden, looking for different-coloured items or finding out how many adults are outside. Consequently, children learn that print or marks carry meaning, and their mathematical knowledge is supported. Children confidently count the number of lines on the paper, sharing the answer proudly with staff.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• implement a broader and more ambitious curriculum, particularly for the younger children, to help them make the best possible progress in their learning
• engage more effectively with parents and other settings that children also attend.