Shepley Pre-School (CIO)

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Practitioners provide children with a safe, caring and exciting learning environment. From a young age, children eagerly enter the setting, separating from their parents and carers confidently. Children hang their coat and bags up and complete self-registration. They are excited for the day ahead. Practitioners are extremely passionate, caring and very enthusiastic. They get to know all children and their families very well. As a result, children form strong attachments with practitioners and are extremely happy.

Children are deeply engrossed in an ambitious curriculum throughout the day. They engage in a range of stimulating activities. Children visit places of interest, such as churches and farms. Practitioners teach them about different buildings, cultures and farm animals. For instance, children learn how to milk a cow and where food comes from. Practitioners teach with passion, energy and purpose. They encourage children to recall their knowledge on farms when they engage in small-world play. Practitioners take children litter picking. Children learn what happens to rubbish and what it does to the environment.

Practitioners have high expectations for children's behaviour. Even the youngest children rise to these expectations and flourish. Practitioners use familiar routines, clear language and plenty of praise and encouragement to help all children to learn how to behave very well. Children earn roles within the setting for good behaviour, for example as 'lunchtime supervisors'. This helps children to develop organisation and independence and help younger children at mealtimes. Children take pride in their extra responsibilities and develop self-esteem.

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

• Children's personal, social and emotional development is a real strength of this setting. Practitioners implement a strong well-being programme to support all children from birth and their parents. They create individual plans to support children to understand their emotions, events in their lives and enable conversations. Practitioners teach children strategies to self-regulate, such as yoga and mindfulness. Children fondly recall 'well-being walks' in the community. They learn 'it is good to talk' as they develop a positive sense of themselves.
• Practitioners sequence the curriculum and extend all children's learning. They encourage children to explore, investigate and engage in purposeful play. Practitioners support children to crawl, walk and roll on bubble wrap. Children excitedly pinch and pop bubbles. Toddlers are intrigued as they use their fingers to make marks and explore glitter, ice and snow. Practitioners extend children's mark-making skills further by introducing paintbrushes and spatulas. Practitioners encourage older children to be precise when they use crayons to colour. Children develop early writing skills from a young age.
• Children have excellent opportunities to develop their speech and language through highly targeted and planned activities. Practitioners teach children early sounds through exciting and engaging mouth and sound exercises. Interactions between practitioners and children are of a high quality. Practitioners use effective questioning to encourage children to describe and give explanation during their play. Their teaching is outstanding, which helps all children to make significant progress.
• Practitioners are highly successful at giving children experiences that promote an understanding of communities. Practitioners, children, parents and community members work together to fundraise and restore unused outdoor spaces and develop the community garden. Practitioners teach children about giving and working together. Children excitedly create dry and warm spaces that will attract different insects. They learn about wildlife and their natural habitat.
• Practitioners choose activities to develop children's problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Children build with a range of resources, counting as they do so. Practitioners teach them about height and size. They introduce new concepts to children as they roll cars down pipes. Children learn about speed and distance, laughing as they do so. Practitioners teach older children to count items of clothing and develop their knowledge of 'more' and 'less than'.
• Relationships with parents are outstanding. Practitioners work extremely closely with parents. They set goals and create plans together. Practitioners engage parents through providing individualised home-learning activities for their children. Managers actively seek parents' and children's voices to reflect and enhance practice further. Parents report that communication sharing is excellent.
• Leadership is extremely strong. Practitioners consistently report high levels of support for their well-being. Managers have effective engagement with practitioners through team meetings, supervision sessions and appraisals. There are strong shared values between managers and practitioners, which means that children receive a very high quality of education.