Stepping Stones Pre-School

What is it like to attend this early years setting?

Children arrive at this community pre-school happy and excited for the day. Staff greet children and their parents with genuine warmth. Staff welcome parents into the pre-school with their children when children need extra reassurance. This ensures that children receive the support that they need to feel safe and quickly settle to their play. Children benefit from the well-considered environment and experience a range of activities that deeply engages them in their self-directed learning. For instance, children return to a previous activity of digging and filling a trench with water. They work with determination and persistence as they transport water carefully, cheering each other on as they invent stories to accompany their activity.

Staff assess children's development regularly and involve parents in planning what children need to make progress. When children have special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), the special educational needs coordinator (SENCo) works closely with staff, parents and other agencies to ensure that children receive bespoke support. Children learn kind and considerate behaviours as they copy the example set by nurturing staff. When children find this tricky, staff work closely with parents to provide sensitive and effective support. All children make sustained progress in their learning and development.

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

• Staff foster a love of books, stories and rhymes. They teach children to see that, as well as being fun and exciting, books are a source of information that can aid their explorations. Staff demonstrate to children how technology can provide information to build their understanding and expand children's vocabulary. For instance, children name the different types of bugs they see on the computer and consider the similarities and differences. They use this knowledge as they independently look for bugs outdoors.
• Staff use the intended curriculum to naturally introduce new words as they play alongside children. Children delight is using their new words and concepts in their later play. For example, staff teach children who are drawing circles about spirals. They demonstrate how a circle can become a spiral and encourage children to notice how these get bigger and bigger as the pattern develops. Children have the time to play with and practise their spirals in their independent play. They confidently approach visitors, eager to demonstrate their new understanding and confidence in this mathematical concept.
• Staff skilfully help children to become friendly and cooperative. They know when to step back and let children resolve issues and when to offer gentle support. This is particularly apparent when children are still learning to manage their big feelings and behaviour. Children learn important skills that help them to resolve the challenges that come with turn-taking and sharing resources.
• Staff provide many opportunities for children to develop both their large and small muscles. Outdoors, children lift and carry heavy loads to support their construction play. They use the resources staff provide to create tricky obstacle and race courses, and then challenge themselves to complete these. Staff provide sensitive support for children's emerging physical skills that builds their confidence and encourages them to have a go. Indoors, children have free access to art and craft materials that they use to develop their hand muscles, ready for later writing.
• Staff plan to provide children with consistent routines, such as communal mealtimes and regular tidy-up times. However, there is not an agreed and commonly understood strategy for managing these effectively. Consequently, these can become chaotic, and children do not benefit fully from the intended learning.
• The new manager and her staff have worked hard to develop and deliver the agreed curriculum. The manager provides regular supervision for staff, who enjoy their work. However, methods for wider evaluation of the pre-school are less well developed. For example, the manager does not yet have strategies that fully identify areas for improvement, such as monitoring the impact of staff deployment. Consequently, teaching and learning do not reach the highest level.

What the setting must and should do next

The provider should:

• support staff to manage daily routines effectively so that children can fully benefit from these experiences
• develop evaluation to precisely identify areas for improvement and provide coaching and support for staff to raise teaching to an even higher level.