Small Saints Pre-school

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children follow the routines that staff implement, helping them to feel safe and confident in the pre-school. For example, they know to hang their belongings on pegs in the hallway when they arrive. When asked, children help staff to tidy away resources outside, which encourages them to take responsibility for caring for the environment. Children show positive relationships with staff. They are keen to share their thoughts and ideas with them. This includes children who speak English as an additional language. For example, children talk about having pumpkins at home.

Children learn how to care for animals. For example, staff help them to understand how to stroke the pre-school's pet cats. Children explain that they need to stoke the cats on their back and not their tail. This helps children to learn how they can keep themselves safe around animals. Children have opportunities to develop their balance and coordination. For example, they hold out their hands to catch balls that staff throw to them outdoors. Indoors, staff provide children with balancing boards and set out obstacle courses for them to take turns moving across. Children squeal with excitement when they explore seeds inside a pumpkin. They laugh with their friends and staff and show good hand-to-eye coordination as they pour water inside the pumpkin. Children receive praise from staff for their achievements, helping to raise their self-esteem.

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

• The manager supports staff's practice and well-being effectively. Staff attend training courses to help extend their knowledge of how to support children's speaking skills. For example, they use simple sign language with children to help them to understand spoken words.
• The manager reflects on practice and makes improvements to help raise outcomes for children. Since the last inspection, the manager has developed the outdoor space, introducing a forest area. Staff support children to use this area to help develop their physical skills. Children have opportunities to develop their imagination. For example, they use flower petals to make potions.
• The manager and staff gather information from parents when children first start, about their prior learning and achievements. They use this information, along with their own observations and assessments, to help identify what children need to learn next. However, they do not share with all parents information about how they intend to help children to build on their learning. This will help parents to understand how they can support their child's development more precisely at home.
• The manager talks to parents to help identify the best and most effective ways to use the additional funding that some children receive. For example, she uses some of the money to enhance staffing, providing more one-to-one support for children to meet their individual needs.
• Staff implement rules and boundaries, such as for children to use their 'walking feet' indoors and to use 'kind hands'. This helps children to understand what is expected of them. Children show they understand how to behave positively. They say that to have kind hands, 'you can share'. Children explain to visitors that if they want toys that another child has, they are to say 'please'.
• Staff support children to learn skills for the future, such as to be independent. For example, children are asked to pour their own drinks, use knives safely to butter bread at snack time and to take off their all-in-one suits when they come in from outside.
• Children show excitement to join in planned activities. However, occasionally, staff do not plan these highly effectively to enable children to build on their existing skills. For example, when staff provide children with blunt knives to attempt to cut pumpkins, they cannot achieve this. So, instead they use other resources and follow their own play ideas.
• The manager and staff work in partnership with schools when children move on. For example, they share information with teachers about children's learning to help promote consistency in their development. The manager invites teachers to visit the children in the pre-school, helping children to become familiar with the person who will be caring for them.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to provide all parents with information about how they intend to build on their children's learning
• help staff to plan activities more effectively so children are provided with tools and resources that help to build on their existing skills.