St Josephs Pre-School Unit

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children enjoy going to the pre-school, where they meet their friends. Staff welcome children warmly and provide a wide range of resources for them to choose from. They prioritise the importance of building relationships with children and families, which helps children settle in quickly, ready to learn as they arrive in the morning. Staff are ambitious for the children to develop their personal skills in learning to play together and sharing the equipment. They use a sand timer to help children understand how to take turns as they pretend to be builders, taking turns with the tools. Staff develop children's social experiences further when they walk to the local shops and visit the local care home to meet the residents.

Staff focus their attention on developing children's speaking and listening skills by talking with the children as they play. Older children make up stories with small unicorn figures, and younger children learn about colour names as they chat with staff at the painting easel. Staff provide the children with microphones so they can practise singing and using their voices. They further support children's enjoyment of language in books when they visit the local library together.

Staff emphasise the importance of encouraging the children to become confident physically. The nursery expansion now provides further opportunities for children to be more active. Children play indoors and outside where they climb, slide and build with construction equipment. Staff help younger children to develop their fine motor skills by squeezing, pinching and pressing play dough. Children develop further control and confidence as staff help them learn to have a go at putting on outdoor clothes and boots by themselves.

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

• Managers ensure that staff complete relevant training to fulfil their roles. They work together as a team, updating their knowledge about keeping children safe to ensure they have a consistent understanding. Managers prioritise support for families and ensure that staff are able to recognise any risks for children. Staff work closely with their local Family Hub, which provides further support and training for parents on site at the pre-school.
• Staff prioritise opportunities for children to develop their communication and language skills as they play. Staff position themselves alongside children to develop interactions and encourage children to explore and talk about their discoveries. Children enjoy playing with cooked pasta in trays, and staff introduce children to words such as 'squash', 'squeeze' and 'sticky'.
• Staff carefully consider how to support children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. They work in partnership with other professionals, including specialist teams from the county and speech and language therapists. The managers employ additional staff to support children's individual needs, play and learning. Staff know the children very well and ensure that any statutory assessments and referrals are made to ensure children are well supported.
• Staff bring children together as a group for circle time, when they enjoy singing songs and choosing objects from a song bag. Children enjoy warm relationships with staff, who encourage them to join in together as they sing. However, the size of the group means that some children quickly become disengaged and distracted. Teaching in the group is not always well matched to meet the needs of all the children. While some of the older children learn to recognise their name, some younger children lose interest as they are asked to recognise the first sound in their name, which is beyond their current level of learning.
• Since the last inspection, the pre-school has expanded to make use of an additional large room and a woodland area on the adjacent school site. These areas provide more opportunity for children to use their larger muscles and develop physically. Children enjoy using a small trampoline and building with larger blocks inside, and they enjoy running up and down the hill under the trees. Staff encourage children to have ideas, such as what might happen if they add water to the mud outside. Children relish creating a mud pit to stamp in as they notice their footprints.
• Staff work closely with parents to support children to become independent in learning to use a potty and sensitively help children to gain confidence. Staff use routines such as snack times to encourage children to develop dexterity as they learn to use cutlery and to butter crackers. However, sometimes staff focus more on the organisation of snack routines, leaving less time to support children's learning further. On these occasions, some children have little interaction to practise their language skills.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• provide children with the interactions they need during mealtimes to develop their conversation skills further
• make better use of group times so that staff's expectations are relevant to the children's learning needs.