South Wootton Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children thoroughly enjoy their time at the pre-school. They settle quickly and show that they feel safe and secure. Staff take time to get to know children and their families to understand children's lived experiences. This helps them to tailor children's care and education to meet their individual needs.

Children behave well and show positive attitudes to learning. Staff help children learn to understand and express their emotions. They provide children with consistency in how they expect them to behave. Staff value children's contributions and are respectful towards them. They provide children with effective explanations that help them learn to share and take turns. Disagreements between children are rare and when they do occur, staff promptly help children to find a resolution. Children receive lots of praise for their efforts and achievements. This helps them to build good levels of self-esteem and contributes to their good behaviour and motivation to learn.

Children benefit from the provider's curriculum that is ambitious for all children to gain the skills they need to be ready for school and life in modern Britain. Staff understand and implement the curriculum well. Children build a wide vocabulary and show curiosity to learn more. Staff give children time to think and express their ideas and thoughts.

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

• The provider leads the staff team with integrity and has children at the heart of all that they do. Leaders have a realistic view of staff practice and continually strive to improve the experiences and education they provide to children. The provider has, however, failed to notify Ofsted of a significant incident as required. This relates to when the pre-school was the victim of vandalism that took place on the childcare premises.
• Staff promptly identify when children may need additional support. They work closely with parents and other professionals to put in place appropriate interventions that help children make progress in their learning and development. Staff are trained to implement interventions that target speech development. The strategies are shared with parents who practise with children at home. This is effective in promptly helping children who show speech delay to make good progress.
• Parents are very positive about the preschool and staff. They state that they know what their child needs to learn next and how to support this at home. Parents state that they notice the progress their children make, particularly in their self-confidence and speaking skills.
• Children become confident talkers. Staff place high priority on providing children with good opportunities to learn new words and express their ideas. Children sing songs with staff and engage in meaningful conversations. When creating pictures with fallen leaves and seeds, children recall what plants need to grow. They confidently attribute meaning to their pictures explaining how they use sprinkles to represent the sunshine.
• Children's physical development is well promoted. Staff have used new knowledge gained from training to develop the outdoor space. Children enjoy climbing and build dens. Staff help children to develop deep thinking skills as they consider how to build and what materials to use. Children grow fruit and vegetables with staff who teach them how plants grow. They harvest and eat the produce. This also teaches them about healthy foods and lifestyles.
• Staff provide children with lots of encouragement to do things for themselves. Children learn to spread jam on bagels and pour milk or water to drink. The provider includes other foods at snack time, such as pasta to help children learn to use cutlery.
• Staff understand the importance of inspiring a love of books in children. They read stories with children with good expression that helps to captivate and sustain interest. Children show familiarity with stories and confidently answer questions.
• Children are imaginative and develop games with their peers. However, at times when children appear to be engaged in activities, staff interaction is less focused to help extend children's learning. Occasionally in group activities, staff allow more confident children to respond. This means that sometimes, some children do not receive the rich learning opportunities they enjoy at other times.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• focus staff's continuous professional development to raise the quality of teaching to the highest level.