Scriven Park Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children settle happily in this nurturing pre-school. The friendly staff make sure all children's care needs are met in a warm, calm and productive atmosphere, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The team are passionate about providing a high-quality learning experience for all children. Children are confident, independent and eager to participate in the stimulating activities on offer. This helps motivate children to learn and their emotional and physical well-being blossom.

Children behave very well. Staff take every opportunity to praise children's positive behaviour. Children learn to share, take turns and to help others. For example, older children remind younger ones not to lick the paint on their fingers. They take them to the fresh water bottles and say, 'Have a drink instead'. Key persons know their children extremely well and know what works with them. Children who are unable to self-regulate are given wonderful support to help them calm and learn how their behaviour affects others. Older children enjoy being helpful, such as when they are asked to help put the home corner resources away so that it is organised and appealing to their friends. This helps children to feel a valued member of the pre-school and supports their self-esteem.

Staff provide children with healthy snacks and fresh water throughout the day. Children begin to make healthy choices when selecting foods to eat. For example, during snack they choose to eat chopped vegetables, and proudly say, 'I love this cucumber now'. They know that eating fruit and vegetables are good for their bodies and know to 'hydrate' their bodies regularly.

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

• The highly committed leadership and manager have a secure overview of the pre-school's curriculum intent. This has a strong focus on the social, communication and physical skills children need to learn before they leave the pre-school. Through training and good mentoring, this knowledge underpins staff's delivery of interesting and challenging activities which staff tailor to meet children's individual next steps in learning. However, although new changes to tracking and planning children's individual progress are in place, and arrangements for supervising and monitoring staff performance and practice have improved, these are not yet fully established and robust enough to ensure all younger children make the best possible progress.
• Staff place a strong emphasis on promoting children's language skills. For example, staff respond positively to everything children say, and often link rhymes and songs they can sing together as they play. This helps build confidence and language skills. Younger children practise new words they have learned, such as 'decanter' and 'tea cup'. Older children use more complex sentences, for instance, to describe a 'galaxy in space' they have created out of different coloured dough and glitter.
• Staff and volunteers recently renovated the outdoor area with a story nook, bug hotel, fairy garden and exciting 'big dig' area and mud kitchen. This enables children to explore a vast range of resources and experiences that cover all areas of the curriculum. Children squeal with joy as staff roll back a piece of artificial grass and they see all the worms and insects living underneath. Older children count and compare them. Younger children learn not to squash them or they will die. Children pick the wiggly worms up and understand that they are 'creatures and have feelings' as they sit and observe them, clearly fascinated. This helps children gain good knowledge about caring for living things.
• The manager and staff continue to assess possible risks to children's safety, for example, they have reviewed the suitability of resources, activities and supervision procedures for children who play outdoors. Staff support children's awareness of danger very well. They help children learn about taking supervised risks in their play. For instance, children playing outside on a wet day remind each other that the wet wood might be slippy.
• Overall, staff teaching is consistently good. For example, staff support children well to enjoy literacy activities, such as stories and practising their early writing skills. They help children gain a very good understanding of mathematical concepts and practise counting, comparing and estimating often. However, although children make good progress and learn the skills they need for what comes next, staff have not fully considered how to improve children's exploration of how things work to help them develop their skills even further.
• Partnerships with parents are strong. Parents are very complimentary about the staff and the service they provide. They comment, 'I have honestly never seen a child so excited to go to pre-school and enjoy their time there' and, 'so much thought and energy are put into making sure the children have the best time'.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• sharpen the focus of observation and planning so staff provide an even clearer picture of younger children's progress and further promote their next steps in learning
• enhance the opportunities children have to explore how things work, to further extend their understanding of the world.