Sale West Preschool Playgroup

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff create a warm and welcoming environment for children. Children have a keen sense of belonging and are emotionally secure and content. The staff team is well established, and the members of the team feel valued and supported. Their morale is high, which contributes to the positive atmosphere in the nursery. This is a calm and safe haven, where children can be away from the main room when they want to take some time away. This contributes effectively to children's well-being. Staff have high expectations of what children can do for themselves. Staff ensure that children practise important daily skills, such as washing hands before lunch. This promotes healthy behaviours.

Staff provide enjoyable activities that are linked to children's interests and next steps in learning. Staff support children to develop their mathematical knowledge. Children of all ages enjoy singing number songs. Children practise and test out their mathematical knowledge through play. They use words such as 'giant' and 'big' to describe large animals and quantity of ice. Staff introduce children to new experiences, such as the opportunity to use tweezers to transport cubes of ice. Staff explain that this is to develop children's fine muscle skills to help support pre-writing skills. Children develop positive attitudes to learning and are well prepared for the next stage in their learning.

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

• The manager is passionate about providing high-quality care and education. Staff plan their curriculum around children's interests and what they need to learn next. Children's progress is closely monitored, and they are well prepared for the new challenges they will encounter as they move on to school.
• Staff promote children's literacy skills well. They provide opportunities for reading stories every day and children enjoy exploring all the pages of a book in the new quiet area. Children learn new words and remember the sequence of familiar stories. They are developing a love of reading in good support of their overall learning.
• Staff support children to understand positive behaviour through consistently applied rules and boundaries. For example, children are encouraged to use their 'walking feet' indoors and to use 'kind hands'. This supports children to know how to keep themselves safe and be kind whilst at playgroup. As a result, children are starting to self-regulate their behaviours. Children are respectful of the environment and behave very well.
• Staff have a good understanding of their role in supporting children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). They work closely with the special educational needs and disabilities coordinator (SENDCo) and area SENDCo to get the early and ongoing support children need. The SENDCo is well qualified and uses her expertise to support staff well. This means children benefit from all staff being able to implement these effective techniques.
• Overall, staff support children who speak English as an additional language (EAL). Staff adapt their interactions with children and make use of recorded messages in children's home languages. However, strategies to support children who speak EAL are not always effective in helping children to link their home language to English, in order to promote their overall communication and language skills.
• In the main, staff support partnership working with parents well. Staff work closely with parents to ensure that children's individual needs are known and well met and parents have opportunities to be involved using the nursery's online communication app. However, information is not always made available to parents in an accessible way in order for parents to be informed and promote a collaborative approach.
• Staff carefully consider how they can support small- and large-muscle movements through activities such as climbing, balancing, painting and using play dough. This provides them with a firm foundation for learning to write. Children are confident in their physical abilities.
• The manager is an experienced and motivated leader. Supervision for staff is supportive. The manager continually reflects and monitors practice, identifying plans for improvements. This helps to ensures that children are receiving the best care.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on and embed strategies to extend children's communication and language, particularly for children who speak English as an additional language
• strengthen partnerships with parents to eliminate all barriers to help parents engage in children's learning.