Stanford In The Vale Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

The manager and staff go above and beyond to promote children's learning and safety. They have an exceptional knowledge and understanding of children's individual needs from the start. This begins with a home visit as part of the settling-in process. This helps children quickly form exceptional bonds with staff, who they very confidently and happily approach.

Staff provide sensitive guidance, when needed, to support children's understanding of the behaviour expectations. They act as excellent role models for the children, demonstrating, for instance, how they should speak and behave towards others. Children demonstrate an exceptional understanding of strategies to use that help them negotiate with each other. For example, even the newest children remind their friends about using the sand timers, to help share and take turns with toys.

Children thrive at the pre-school. They make rapid progress in their learning and development. Staff have a thorough understanding of each child's learning needs, and they have high expectations for what children can achieve. They know what they are teaching and why. Children easily make choices from exciting and interesting activities that engage them in learning extremely well. For example, several children maintained and persevered with the challenge of removing dinosaur models from ice. They shared ideas together about how to do this and extended their physical skills, using tools such as hammers safely.

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

• The pre-school is managed extremely well by dedicated trustees and a highly effective manager. Staff receive exceptional support for their well-being and professional development, which is reflected in their high-quality practice. The manager provides staff with ongoing feedback and training to extend their skills and knowledge continually.
• The manager and staff plan an ambitious and extremely well-thought-out curriculum, which takes account of what children need to learn in full. All areas of learning are promoted extremely well. In particular, children develop exceptional personal and social skills. They learn to work together, such as building a balancing beam as a group. They listen and follow instructions extremely well.
• Staff understand what they teach exceptionally well. This includes providing high-quality interactions to extend children's language development and vocabulary, as well as reading books daily to all children. In addition, children take home books and resources to help them continue their learning at home.
• Parent partnerships are excellent and supportive. Parents' feedback is highly complimentary about the support they and their children receive. Staff work exceptionally well with parents to support children's needs at the pre-school and at home. For example, staff organised a scavenger hunt for the holidays. This encouraged parents to take their children out for physical activity and engage them in learning activities when not at pre-school.
• Staff support children who need extra help extremely well. All staff follow the expected strategies, including getting down to the children's level to enable them to see staff's faces and movements clearly. In addition, staff use visual timetables and picture cards. These approaches help to promote children's communication and understanding very successfully.
• The manager and staff are highly effective in seeking additional funding for children and families. They reflect on the use of extra funding extremely well to ensure it meets children's needs. For example, children benefit from yoga sessions to support their physical and mental well-being.
• Staff engage extremely successfully with other settings children attend and a wide range of professionals. They proactively make links with others to share information or to seek advice. The exceptionally strong partnerships with everyone involved in children's care and learning provide excellent continuity in meeting their needs.
• Children are extremely confident in managing their personal needs. This includes organising their own snack. For example, children safely fetched a chair then chose a plate, cup and healthy snack to eat. Staff promote healthy lifestyles very effectively. For example, they provide plenty of access to the outdoors. They supplement children's lunches with additional healthy foods, such as salad items. Furthermore, they signpost parents to a wide range of information to help support children's good health.
• Staff promote children's physical skills highly successfully. They encourage children to stand at activities to help build their core muscles, such as when playing with dough. On the day of the inspection, children benefitted from a challenging obstacle course across different surfaces and levels. This supported children to gain physical strength, balance and coordination and learn to assess and take risks safely.