Sandcastles Pre-school

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are very busy and engage in a wide variety of activities. Staff provide activities to help develop children's hand control and concentration. For example, young babies become more skilful as they sort shapes and excitedly paint pictures using brushes. Toddlers are very proud when, after much perseverance, they can pick up a single lentil with the tweezers. Outside, children use chalk to carefully draw large triangles and circles on the path.

Children play with model dinosaurs. They eagerly point out the difference between the number of horns on the 'Triceratops' and the 'Styracosaurus', supporting their mathematical development. Following a recent interest in insects, children are keenly observant. They spot a small beetle scurrying in the grass and relocate a solitary green fly to a 'happy home' among the pansies. Children ask: 'Are there predators in there?' This shows that children are extending their existing knowledge about dinosaurs to different contexts.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, managers have identified the need for a strong focus on children's personal, emotional and social development to create a secure foundation for other areas of learning. For instance, staff have high expectations of children's behaviour and establish routines that enable children to move about safely. They encourage children to listen and to follow instructions well, take turns and share fairly. Staff focus on developing close bonds with children to help them feel emotionally secure. This helps prepare children well for their future learning.

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

• Staff assess children's progress regularly. They make specific plans to help close gaps in learning and to help children keep up, for example by working in small groups. They work closely with parents and other agencies to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND). Staff provide excellent support to children with SEND and to those who speak English as an additional language. For example, they break down learning into achievable steps. Managers effectively use funding to create resource boxes, such as a collection of 'emotion' puppets, which staff use to encourage children to talk about their feelings.
• Staff support children's language development and early reading skills well. They snuggle up with babies and read engaging books and help them to learn how to turn the pages. Children enthusiastically join in action rhymes and singing at regular intervals during the day. They gain a good sense of rhythm and learn rhyming words. Staff introduce new words, such as 'reflection', when reading a storybook to toddlers. Older children learn the sounds of letters and how to recognise their written name.
• The children benefit from woodland walks with staff around the site. They participate in various forest school activities, such as collecting daisies and buttercups, which they use to make a sticky picture. They sing about bees making honey from nectar. However, staff do not use these opportunities to extend children's knowledge, for example by exploring the flowers in more detail so that children can investigate where the nectar is found. Children's thinking is not challenged consistently, and staff do not sufficiently build on what they already know.
• Staff promote good hygiene practices and independence, as children learn to wash their hands thoroughly. They talk to children about maintaining good oral health, and children excitedly use a brush to clean 'Snappy' the puppet crocodile's teeth. Staff provide children with healthy fruit snacks. They help keep children safe in hot weather by encouraging them to wear hats and sun cream and to have frequent drinks of water to keep themselves hydrated.
• Parents are very happy and reassured that their children are safe and well looked after. They appreciate the support from managers and staff. They say they know what their children are learning and the progress they make.
• Managers support the staff team very well by providing opportunities for professional development, staff meetings and individual supervision sessions. Staff know that managers are available to talk to at any time. This helps to create a culture of mutual trust and collaboration.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to consistently extend learning for older children to build on what they already know to develop their thinking skills further.