Squirrels Pre-school (Delamere Park)

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are well attuned to children's needs and demonstrate a good knowledge of their progress and abilities. As a result, children are happy and secure. Children enter the setting with a smile and are warmly welcomed into an organised play environment that reflects their interests. Staff plan activities that focus on children's individual next steps. For example, they providing mark-making opportunities in a heavy-duty plastic tray for children to practise writing letters of their name. Children benefit from a designed curriculum that promotes meaningful learning.

Children have autonomy over their learning, with opportunities to test and trial new ideas. Staff extend on this by asking children questions such as 'What do you think we need to use to build a bridge?' This supports children's critical-thinking skills. Children contribute ideas on how to create robots and horses from cardboard boxes and are met with enthusiastic staff who foster this creativity. Children work collaboratively with their peers and often seek help from one another if needed. They build positive relationships with each other and demonstrate respectful attitudes. What has been learned and experimented with earlier in the week is revisited for children to recall and reflect on. Children demonstrate high levels of engagement and a keenness to learn. This helps them to make good progress in their learning.

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

• The provider has a fluid curriculum in place that moves with children's interests. Activities are often revisited so children can recall what they have learned before. The play environment changes to reflect children's experiences. For example, staff transformed an area of the provision into an 'airport', as some children had been on holiday. In the main, staff understand what they want children to achieve, and they plan children's next steps effectively. However, some staff deliver the curriculum with more confidence than others. As a result, children do not receive high-quality interaction and teaching consistently.
• Staff support children to develop a love for reading effectively. Children listen with intent to stories as staff bring them to life using good intonation in their voices. When reading 'Room on the Broom', staff pause to enable children to fill in the missing phrases. This supports children's communication and language skills. Children and their families have access to a lending library, which shares the passion for reading with the wider community. Children make good progress in their early literacy skills.
• Staff focus on getting children ready for school. They share photos of their new school environments, which creates 'social stories' for the children to take home and show their families. These photos also help children to know what to expect ahead of their transition to primary school. Managers and staff maintain a good rapport with the local schools in the area. This further contributes to a smooth transition to school for children.
• Children are kind to one another. Staff develop age-appropriate methods of teaching children about the importance of boundaries and consent. For example, staff are on hand to remind the children that their friends have 'bubbles of privacy,' when they are close to each other. As a result, children develop an early understanding of respect and begin to appreciate when their peers may need space.
• The provider ensures children have a consistent routine in place. Children follow adult directions willingly. They recognise familiar aspects of their routine. For example, children tell staff that it is tidy-up time when they notice the sand timer has finished. Overall, children's behaviour and conduct are good.
• Management and staff work swiftly to identify any gaps in children's learning, using observation and assessment to do so. Leaders have good knowledge of when and how to involve external professionals to further support children's development. Staff plan targeted interventions for children in line with their next steps. Additionally, the setting ensures parents are involved early if concerns about their children's development are identified. Parents comment on the support that the setting gives to them as a family unit. All children, including those who require additional support, make good progress in their learning due to timely interventions.
• Overall, staff teach children about some similarities and differences among themselves and others. For example, children enjoy drawing themselves and talking about their own features and how they may differ from their peers. However, staff do not help children to learn in depth about cultures and beliefs different to their own. This limits children's understanding of the wider world and what life is like in modern Britain.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide further opportunities for children to develop their understanding of equality and diversity in modern Britain beyond that of their immediate community
• support staff to implement the curriculum consistently to help support children's individual learning.