St Mary's and St Peter's Pre School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children are happy and confident. Staff have close bonds with children and value each child highly. They take time to get to know children well and help them to settle securely. Children take part in various engaging activities. For example, children create their own recipes, such as 'gingerbread pie', and pretend to cook this in the mud kitchen in the garden. They play cooperatively together and share and take turns. This supports their imaginative skills and personal and social development.

Children learn how to behave in safe ways. For instance, children pretend to cross a road as one plays the role of a lollipop person on a zebra crossing created in the garden. Children enjoy playing in the water tray where they find shiny objects at the bottom. Staff teach them new words, such as 'treasure'. Children carefully fill long tubes with water, persevering patiently until full. This supports their small-muscle skills. Staff teach children good communication, language and literacy skills. Older children recognise and write their own names.

Staff read a wide range of stories to children. Children also take part in helicopter stories where they act out their own stories and staff write them down. This helps to fire children's imaginations and supports early literacy very well. Overall, staff have high expectations of children. They manage children's behaviour successfully. They explain why certain behaviour is not acceptable and share group rules with children. Children behave well. The curriculum is wide and interesting. Children learn good skills in preparation for school.

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

• Staff provide a range of well-planned, interesting activities that build on children's learning. They keep a close eye on children's progress and make good use of this information to give children the right challenges. All children, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities, make good progress.
• Children have a good understanding of the world. For example, there is an 'investigation station' in the garden where children find tree stumps and logs, and buried underneath see different types of insects. Children plant and grow vegetables. Staff teach them how to take care of plants and where food comes from.
• Children have good physical skills. They learn to balance and steer a variety of wheeled toys skilfully around the garden. They climb across frames and balance on planks. Staff play organised ball games with children to develop their physical coordination skills.
• Children develop good creative skills. Staff provide access to a wide range of flexible tools and materials, such as recyclable tubes and boxes, masking tape and scissors, and children combine different objects to create their own models.
• Staff help children to gain good early mathematical skills. They point out different shapes in the environment and encourage children to count objects as they play. Staff use mathematical language to describe size and quantity.
• Staff help children to learn about and respect difference. Staff read stories that have characters from different cultures, religions and backgrounds. Children play with dolls, puzzles and dressing-up clothes from different cultures.
• Staff teach children about emotions and feelings. For instance, they read a special story about different emotions. Children play a game where they identify different emotions and the possible reasons that cause those feelings. This supports their understanding of their emotions and those of others.
• Staff work effectively with parents. They keep them regularly informed about their children's progress. For example, they provide updates in secure electronic diaries of children's progress and talk to parents each day. Staff provide good ways for parents to support their children's learning. For example, parents borrow books from the nursery to read to children at home.
• The manager supports staff well. She meets each staff member individually to discuss workloads and well-being and provides support, where needed. The manager also discusses their training needs and staff have attended a range of courses. This includes a course on emotional well-being in children, which led to improved outcomes for children.
• Overall, children are able to do things for themselves. For example, all children put on their own coats and older ones prepare their own fruit snacks. While the younger children are beginning to show some skills in being able to do things for themselves, this could be developed further during snack time.
• The nursery provides children with healthy snacks. Staff talk to children about the value of eating nutritious food. They are beginning to teach children about oral hygiene but this has not yet been fully implemented.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• develop more opportunities for three-year-old children to be able to do things for themselves, particularly during snack times
• continue to develop more ways to promote oral hygiene for children.