St Peter's Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Staff are kind, caring and warmly welcome children into the setting. This helps children to happily separate from their parents at the start of the day. Children demonstrate that they feel safe and secure. They make choices in their play throughout the day. Staff have high expectations for children's good behaviour. They act as good role models to children offering children gentle and age-appropriate reminders. Staff offer children frequent praise and encouragement. As a result, children behave well and play cooperatively with their friends. Staff play and interact well with children. For example, staff encourage children to use their imagination and hunt for the pretend giant from 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. Children giggle and squeal with delight as they run and hide from the pretend giant.

Staff provide children with an ambitious curriculum. Children have fun and enjoy joining in with the play opportunities on offer. Children show a positive attitude to their learning. Staff join in with children's play. For example, staff pretend to be the customers buying items in the shop while children enjoy being the shop keeper. This helps children to remain engaged and motivated. As a result, all children make good progress in their learning. They are developing the skills they need to help prepare them for their move to school.

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

• Improvements have been made since the last inspection. The newly formed committee and newly appointed manager and deputy have worked effectively to address the weaknesses identified. They have sought advice and guidance from the local authority advisor. They have accessed further training to improve their knowledge and skills. Safeguarding practice is effective and the quality of teaching is good.
• Staff have a good understanding of how young children learn and develop. They use good teaching methods that support children to be engaged and motivated in their play. The newly revised curriculum takes into account children's current interests and what they need to learn next. There is a good range of varied play experiences that children enjoy taking part in. However, staff do not consistently focus on the plans for children's future learning to help children make even more progress in their learning.
• Staff complete regular observations and assessments of children to inform them of the progress children are making. Staff have a good understanding of children's development. However, staff do not always gather important information from parents about what children already know and can do when they first start attending. This means that staff do not plan as precisely for children's learning from the very outset.
• Staff promote children's early communications skills well. They engage them in frequent conversations and discussions. Children's vocabulary is extended further as they sit and listen to favourite stories. They confidently repeat familiar phrases and learn to pronounce new words, such as 'cocoon' when listening to a story about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
• Staff manage children's behaviour well. They teach children about rules and boundaries to help keep themselves safe. For example, children know that they must line up and wait for all children and staff to be ready to go out to the garden so that they can be seen by staff. Children show empathy towards each other, saying sorry to their friends if they have accidently hurt them.
• Partnerships with parents are effective. Staff ensure parents are kept informed about their child's time at the setting. They share information via an online application and through verbal discussions at the end of the day. Parents express how happy their children are attending. They say that they would recommend the setting to other parents.
• The new committee ensure the staff are well supported in their role. Staff benefit from recent training to build on their current teaching skills. They express how supported they now feel in their roles. This helps to improve the overall outcomes for children attending.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build further on the recently improved planning of the curriculum and use children's identified next steps for learning more frequently to help children make even better progress in their learning
• gather more detailed information from parents about children's starting points on entry, to further inform the planning of children's learning from the very beginning.