St. Mary's Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children come into the pre-school excited to learn. Staff support those who are younger and less confident to settle, as they understand children's unique personalities and care needs. Children benefit from the kind and caring staff, who offer them the reassurance they need. Children quickly develop strong bonds with their key person, to help them become confident in the routines of pre-school. This supports children to have good levels of emotional well-being. Staff have high expectations for children's behaviour. As a result, children behave well and respect their peers. Children love to play together. They listen to and respect each other's ideas. For instance, as children race cars down a track, they guess which friend's car will be faster.

Staff create a curriculum that interests and motivates children to learn. Opportunities for children to be physically active are supported well throughout the curriculum. For instance, when children play outdoors, staff teach them how to sit on bicycles. Children begin to push themselves around, gaining confidence in their new physical skills. Leaders ensure that any additional funding the pre-school receives is used effectively to meet individual needs and improve outcomes for children. For instance, where children need one-to-one support, this is provided. Staff use these opportunities to work on priorities for children's learning and care. All children, including those in receipt of additional funding and those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), make good progress from their starting points.

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

• Leaders and staff take pride in their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Staff are passionate about teaching children about the cultures, festivals and religions that are represented in the setting. Staff help children to value their uniqueness. They provide meaningful opportunities for children to learn about the different cultures and languages represented in the pre-school. For instance, children share their traditional costumes and national flags and foods that are important to their families. This supports children to celebrate their own cultural heritage and that of their friends and helps to prepare them for their future lives in modern Britain.
• Children benefit from a wide variety of opportunities to build on their physical skills. They have regular access to the garden and forest school area, and they explore the local community. Staff provide opportunities to build children's gross and fine motor skills well. For instance, children learn how to use saws to cut small pieces of wood. Staff teach children how to coordinate their hand and arm movements to move the saw backwards and forwards. Children listen carefully and follow the instructions that staff share with them as they proudly succeed at cutting the wood. Children develop good physical coordination skills and gain confidence in a range of environments.
• Leaders are passionate about giving children the good foundations they need for future learning. The staff team works well together. The curriculum offers children a broad range of experiences, which motivate their learning. Staff know children's likes and dislikes and plan learning experiences to capture their interests. However, the managers acknowledge that staff's understanding of the link between activities and the next steps for individual children's learning is not yet fully embedded. At times, this limits how some staff can focus teaching more precisely on what they want children to know or be able to do next.
• Staff use good settling-in procedures with younger and less confident children to help them transition into pre-school. Leaders have adapted settling-in procedures for new children. This successfully supports children to begin to become familiar with the pre-school and staff, who get to know them and their individual needs. There is a good key person system in place, which helps children as they have a familiar person to relate to. This helps them to develop the bonds they need to feel safe and secure.
• Partnerships with parents are good. Parents speak highly about leaders and staff and the high-quality care and support they provide, particularly for those children who need extra support. Staff take the time to get to know families to help them share children's progress. However, a two-way flow of information is not always successfully promoted with all parents to consistently enable staff to have a full range of information about children and support parents to continue their child's learning at home.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• enhance staff understanding of the link between activities and the next steps for individual children's learning to help them focus teaching more precisely
• enhance partnerships with parents to improve the two-way flow of information regarding children's learning and development and to support parents to continue their child's learning at home.