St Thomas' Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The manager and practitioners greet children with a warm and friendly welcome. Practitioners establish strong bonds with parents and children. This helps children to feel settled and they separate from their parents with ease. Children are content and display self-assurance within the setting. For instance, children confidently approach the inspector to share their toys and ask questions. Practitioners interact and engage with children effectively. They build on children's interests, knowledge and skills. Children benefit from having positive role models to help them to enhance their social skills. Practitioners engage in respectful conversations and promote children's good behaviour and manners. Children develop close friendships and interact well with each other.

The manager implements a curriculum that promotes all areas of learning and incorporates children's interests. Practitioners observe and assess children's progress, which enables them to identify and support children whose progress is not as expected. Practitioners work well with the special educational needs and/or disabilities coordinator (SENDCo) to provide tailored support for children. They also work in partnership with parents and other professionals, such as speech and language therapists, to ensure a consistent approach to children's development. As a result, children make progress from their starting points in learning.

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

• Since their last inspection, the manager and her team have worked hard to implement an effective curriculum. Practitioners know their key children well and what they want them to learn. They plan activities and experiences that promote children's curiosity and supports them to achieve their next steps in learning.
• The manager holds supervision meetings with practitioners and monitors their practice. This enables her to identify areas where she can support her team further. Practitioners receive support to gain their qualifications and they have access to a range of online training. This ensures that practitioners understand and implement the curriculum to a good standard.
• Practitioners support children to develop their language skills, such as by narrating on their play and echoing their words with correct pronunciation and grammar. They introduce new words during activities to enrich children's vocabulary. Practitioners use visual cards and displays to support all children, including those who speak English as an additional language and with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), to communicate and learn new words.
• Children have daily access to outdoor spaces where they can move in different ways to strengthen their muscles and further develop their coordination skills. Additionally, children benefit from football sessions with external teachers to help to develop their physical skills. Children access a nature garden where they learn about insects and small animals, such as birds. They explore natural resources and grow and care for their own plants. This helps children to learn about the world around them.
• Practitioners use a feelings board at group time or during free play, to teach children about different emotions. However, during situations of minor conflict, they do not consistently give children the opportunity to express how they feel or learn the impact their actions have on others. For example, practitioners do not always acknowledge the feelings of the children involved.
• Practitioners encourage children to be independent throughout the day. Children are confident to choose their own resources and meet their own personal needs, such as wiping their own nose, washing hands and putting on their coats. However, this is not always consistent across the rooms. For example, the older children are able to help themselves to drinking water but the two- and three-year-old children are instead offered water regularly by practitioners. Older children put on their own coats, but practitioners take their coats off their pegs for them. This does not fully support children to develop their independence skills.
• Risk assessment is effective and practitioners are deployed effectively. Following the previous inspection, the manager has reviewed and made changes to risk assessments and procedures. Practitioners know what is expected of them and they act swiftly to keep children safe.
• Parents are kept informed about their children's progress through daily feedback and a communication app. Parents speak highly of the setting. They say their children are developing well.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• build on opportunities for children to identify and talk about their feelings to help them to reflect, express and understand their actions and emotions
• support children further to develop their independence skills during daily routines.