Ripley Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

As children arrive, they are warmly welcomed by the friendly, caring staff, who understand each child's unique personality. Children are happy and eager to take part in activities. The children who are new to the pre-school receive lots of support and attention to help them settle at their own pace. Children build close relationships with staff. They actively seek them out to join in their games.

The pre-school focuses on promoting children's personal, social and emotional development to help them learn to make friends and enhance their well-being. Children behave well and are developing good social skills. Staff model kindness and good manners, and children mirror this when talking to their friends. For example, children apologise and make sure that their friends are okay after bumping into them. This demonstrates that children are developing an understanding of the potential impact of their own behaviour on others. Staff support children's communication skills well. For example, they extend children's language by adding new words as they play and repeat back their speech to support their pronunciation.

Staff enthusiastically join in with children's play. This promotes children's positive attitudes towards their learning. Children are invited by staff to be 'birdwatchers'. They use binoculars and telescopes as they help staff to count the different varieties of birds seen in the garden. Afterwards, they make bird feeders to encourage more birds to visit their setting. This supports children to learn about the world around them.

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

• Management and staff are committed to providing good-quality childcare. They demonstrate enthusiasm and strive to provide every opportunity for all children to thrive during their time at the pre-school. There is a strong team ethos and a high emphasis is placed on supporting staff well-being.
• Children form close bonds with staff, who know them well. They receive cuddles and reassurance if they are upset and naturally seek the support of staff if they need help. This supports children's emotional well-being. Management and staff implement appropriate boundaries and support children to manage their emotions. Children are taught to share, take turns and be kind to their friends.
• Staff place a high priority on developing children's confidence and independence. For example, children learn to independently put on their outdoor clothing and manage their personal care needs well. Additionally, mealtimes are successfully used to develop children's social skills and independence, as well as their understanding of the importance of nice manners and good hygiene routines.
• Management are committed to continually developing the pre-school provision for children. They have a clear understanding of how to make continuous improvements to develop the pre-school provision. They are currently working to fully embed their staff supervision and monitoring process to ensure staff are targeted and developing their own skills and knowledge.
• Staff provide daily opportunities for children to be physically active in the fresh air. They encourage children to take managed risks in their play as they practise new skills, such as balancing on giant balls and kicking a football into the goal. Children learn to use their feet to manoeuvre wheeled toys and eagerly chase their friends. They delight at finding a range of bugs under pots and in the soil, and they talk about the snail and how it moves across their hands.
• Management and staff recognise the importance of sharing stories and singing songs to promote children's communication and recall skills. Children use their developing language to answer questions and talk about the illustrations in story books. Older children enthusiastically sequence pictures from the story, explaining their thinking and recalling events confidently.
• Staff are calm and caring, and they show an in-depth understanding of children's individual care and learning needs. They plan a range of enjoyable experiences to support children's development. However, they do not always consider how to adapt activities to reflect the differing abilities and levels of children. As a result, some children benefit more than others from the intended learning.
• Partnerships with parents are good and they say that their children are happy attending. They comment on children's close relationships with staff and how well their children have settled in. Parents are pleased with the regular information they receive about their child's care and learning progress, and how they can consistently support their child's development at home, such as supporting with toilet training and healthy eating ideas.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to develop a more secure understanding of how to target activities to support the skills and knowledge children need to learn next.